A Ballad of War
by Phoenix Serapha
Summary: Hopeless and lost in their own lives, Zechs and Heero are drawn into a new conflict two years after the Eve Wars. Loosely inspired by John Davidson's A Ballad of Hell. Contains strong references to the Episode Zero manga. COMPLETE
1. Prologue

_A Ballad of War: Prelude_

Disclaimer: As I'm sure everyone already knows, I do not own GW or any of the characters associated with it, at least not until I, through purely illegal means, gain the money to buy out Sotsu, Sunrise, Bandai, and any other association that currently has claim on it. The poem 'A Ballad of Hell' is not mine either, but John Davidson's, although he's hardly alive enough to claim it now. The original characters contained throughout this story are, however, completely mine otherwise they wouldn't be original, and therefore I can continue to have my wicked way with them without concern for copyright laws.

_AC 198:_

_I don't know how to tell you this— _

She should have known this would happen.

—_I'm not even certain I can tell you. _

She should have known it wouldn't have lasted.

_What is it, Zechs?_

The Sanq Kingdom had lasted, the colonies had lasted, and maybe even peace would last, but this could not.

_I'll spare you the details of it._

Yes, he would spare her the details, just as he spared her of everything these days.

_Zechs, just tell me. _

The others' lives weren't having fairy tale endings—why should she have expected hers to?

_I can't stay here. _

_What?_

_I must return to Earth. _

She should have known this would happen.

Lucrezia Noin stepped out of the shower, wrapping herself in a white robe and blotting her short violet hair with a towel. Even after standing under the steaming hot water for close to twenty minutes she still felt dead on her feet, but this would not be the first day she showed up at the base only half-awake.

She crossed the room, leaned over the sink. Held her hands under the ice-cold water for a moment, then splashed it on her face.

The mirror in front of her was still fogged up from the steam from the shower. Using the edge of the towel, Lucrezia cleared a circle just big enough to accommodate her face's reflection. She studied herself critically, turning away from the mirror only once she was satisfied that the head of the Prevention Organization wouldn't be able to tell that she had been crying.

_I can't stay here._

_Zechs, what are you talking about?_

_I can't tell you that. Not yet at least. _

_Why not? _

_I can't tell you until I know where I stand._

_Until you know where you stand on what? Why do you have to go back to Earth? Why would you _want _to?_

_What I want doesn't matter. _

_And what about me? What about what I want?_

_Lucrezia, it's all settled. I have to leave. _

The door behind her opened. She straightened her back and held her head up and did not turn to face him, but neither did she tell him to leave.

He hesitated when he came to her, and for a brief moment she thought he would retreat. That wasn't his style, though. It never had been. No matter what battle—be it with one of the Gundam pilots or with her—he would rather die than retreat.

He slid his arms around her, pulling her back against him. She gave no sign of protest. She didn't relax in his embrace either. She merely waited, hoping against the odds that he would tell her he wasn't leaving her, or even better than that, that the previous night had been nothing more than a nightmare shared between the two of them.

He kissed the back of her neck. "Lucrezia," he whispered, his lips moving against the base of her shoulder. "Lucrezia, I'm sorry."

She sighed.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, and his dull tone made it obvious he wasn't expecting any reply.

"Then don't leave me," she said coldly, trying to summon the anger she had felt last night, yet at the same time knowing it would not come. Her rage had been cast out by another emotion, one that never failed to overcome her when she was forced to stand against him, one that, rather than fading over the past fourteen months as it should have, had only grown until she suspected it could be classified as a paranoia.

Her fear of losing him.

He didn't respond with the defense he had used last night, saying that he _had_ to do this (whatever 'this' was); he offered no argument, offered nothing but another kiss, then released her and walked out of the bathroom, easing the door shut behind him.

"Why are you doing this to me, Zechs?" she asked of the empty air where he had stood, then she fell to her knees, promising herself she wouldn't cry again and breaking that promise, just as he was breaking every one he had ever made to her.

**Author's Notes**: Upon re-reading this prologue, I've come once again to the conclusion that I do not like it. It's really rather weak and petty, but I suppose it must stand. It's only the prologue, after all. When I first wrote it back in 2001 I had no idea how long Ballad was going to be. I had originally intended it to concern Zechs and Noin, but very quickly it turned into a war story mostly concerned with characters in the Episode Zero manga (though I admit to taking several liberties with them). My sincerest gratitude to all who have read this fic, and I hope that you continue to enjoy it, now that I am able to post the rest of it here. Due to the massive amounts of requests I have received via email and message boards, I have decided that once I am through re-editing Ballad and have posted the final chapters of it, I will begin posting its follow-up, "The Remnants of War." It's a bit of a far cry from Ballad, but I think I like its style better.


	2. Chapter One

**Preliminary Author's Notes:** Due to the inexplicable fact that this website is no longer compatible with the format I use for Ballad, sections of this revised version will no longer be divided by my usual series of three centered asterisks, but rather will be separated in numbered subchapters. I am not fond of this new format, but it seems to be the only way I can make Ballad look more like it used to.

Chapter One

**I**

Their apartment was on base, as were those of the other top preventers, but though she did not have to travel very far to reach the main facility, Lucrezia was still late for her meeting with the organization's president. Upon entering the building she rushed to the elevator and pressed the button marked '14,' the uppermost aboveground floor. The elevator had ascended only eight levels when it came to a stop.

Lucrezia cursed under her breath and watched with impatience as the doors parted and gave entrance to a young man who looked as tired and frustrated as she felt.

The man studied her in silence for a few moments after the elevator had resumed its ascension, then uttered a small gasp when he recognized her. "Lieutenant Noin," he said, bringing his heels together and saluting.

She turned to him, trying to recall where she had seen him before. He _did_ look vaguely familiar and though she could think of no other place she might have known him from, the title with which he had addressed her disproved the idea that he may have once been her student.

"You don't remember me, do you, Lieutenant?" he asked, smiling.

She shook her head and returned the smile. "No, I'm sorry, I don't."

"I didn't think you would," he said. "We were never formally introduced." He paused. "Three years ago I was a soldier under OZ."

"One of the lucky survivors."

His smile faded. "I don't consider myself that lucky. The others, the ones who died—at least they died knowing and believing in what they were fighting for. They never had to live with any of the regrets that came after the wars were over…when there was nothing left to be done, they never had to go home and see what the wars had _really _done to the people, what _they _had done." He sighed and smiled again. There was a certain sadness in his smile, a darkness Lucrezia had seen too many times on the faces of other soldiers who had lived through Treize Kushrenada's battle for an ideal that, she supposed, no one other than the man himself had truly understood; it was a darkness she had seen cross her own face and those of everyone else who had been in some way involved in the wars, a darkness that had haunted Zechs's face as long she had known him.

"No, Ma'am," he said, "I don't consider myself lucky to have survived. To do that would dishonor those I fought with who gave their lives in combat. I merely consider myself fortunate to have been given the chance to rectify the mistakes we've made in the past."

The elevator reached the top floor and the young soldier started into the corridor. "But of course," he said, stopping and looking at her over his shoulder, "we'll never be able to atone for those mistakes, will we, Miss Noin?"

She shook her head. "No. Never fully."

"Farewell, Lieutenant." He turned to the right and disappeared into the hallway, the solid clapping of his boots against the marble floor echoing after him.

_He sounds just like Zechs_, she thought, _so full of remorse even as young as he is. He would rather be dead than be left with the memory of what he's done and have the opportunity to help make it right again. _

She proceeded down the hall to the president's office, where she was ushered in immediately. The guards knew nothing of the situation—nor did Lucrezia, for that matter—but they knew better than to detain someone the president had so urgently summoned.

The room was dark as it most often was, illuminated only by the computer monitor on the desk and the light reflected by the Earth, which was visible through the massive window on the wall across from they doorway at which Lucrezia stood.

The president of the prevention organization—who had, like Lucrezia, once been employed under OZ and had worked to form this agency shortly after the assassination of Treize Kushrenada, and had been offered the organization's highest office three months ago when the former president had died during a mission on the L5 Colony—sat in front of the window, her back to the desk and Noin.

"You're late, Noin," she said flatly, not taking her eyes from the blue, glowing Earth.

"I got held up," Lucrezia replied, and her superior did not press for any further explanation.

Une rose from the chair and went to the desk, straightening a stack of papers she found there. "We may have a situation on our hands," she began, shoving the papers in a drawer.

"What kind of situation?"

"I do not yet know the specifics, but if this turns out to be what it looks like, our time of peace could be coming to an end."

"You're saying there's going to be another war?"

_Not again, oh please, God, not again. _

"I'm saying that it's a possibility."

"A war between whom? The Earth and the colonies?"

"The Earth's involvement is unknown at this time."

Lucrezia drove her fist into the desk. "Then who _is _involved?" she yelled, staring into Midii's cold, narrowed eyes, unaware of how loud her voice had become in its outrage over what she was hearing. "Why do you think another war could break out?"

Une stepped away from the desk, returning to her spot near the window. "I've received a report of the possible manufacturing and shipment of mobile suits."

"Mobile suits? By whom? Where are they being shipped to?"

Une sighed and shrugged.

"We don't know who's building them or who gave the order to have them built. We don't know where they're being shipped, either."

"Then what do you know?" Lucrezia asked bitterly, fighting the urge to leap across the desk and strangle the former OZ countess.

"Only that it's a completely new model, supposedly more powerful than anything OZ ever created."

"More powerful than the Zero System?"

"I wouldn't jump to that extreme yet, Miss Noin." She shifted her gaze back to the view of the Earth.

Noin stood up straight and backed away from the desk, stealing a glance at the computer's monitor as she did. The white of the screen was marred by small black text but she was too far away to read any of it. "Who sent you the report?"

"An ally on one of the colonies," Une replied. "Triton Bloom."

"I thought Trowa was going to stay on Earth for a while."

She said nothing.

"How did he find out about this?"

"He has his sources." Une turned to face her. "I'm having you transferred, Noin. This fire is still relatively small, but I'm sure you realize its potential."

She nodded. "Where are you sending me?"

"The L3 Colony. You and Zechs will leave this base tomorrow morning with--"

"Preventer Wind will not be accompanying me on this mission," she broke in, perhaps too hastily.

Midii shot her a quizzical glance. Though Lucrezia suspected she was still unsure of the nature of their relationship—she herself was unsure of it—this was the first time Zechs would not be joining her on a prevention operation and it was enough to make Une momentarily forget what she was saying.

Midii nodded and continued. "You will depart from this base tomorrow morning with Sally Po and her partner. The three of you will rendezvous with Trowa Barton once you arrive at L3. I'm sure he will be able to take care of things from there."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Be prepared to leave at 0600 hours."

"Yes."

"She managed to maintain the peace for a while, at least, didn't she?" Une asked, throwing Lucrezia an almost amused smirk. "Miss Relena Darlian. Little Relena Peacecraft. She tried."

"Zechs says she's going to fail," Lucrezia said.

"Does he?"

"In so many words, yes."

"He may be right."

Lucrezia turned and started to walk out of the room.

"Noin," Midii called out when she was at the door. Lucrezia stopped and looked back at her.

Une stepped back from the window and gestured at the slowly rotating blue sphere beyond. "What do you think Mr. Treize would think of this, of the way it is now? If he could see all of this just once more, what would he think of it?"

Without answering, Lucrezia exited the room and shut the door behind her, leaving Midii Une to the darkness and the memories of the fallen leader.

**II**

She did not immediately return to the apartment. There was still some paperwork required on the completion of the last mission she had gone on, and, much as she had always hated paperwork and the formalities it entailed, she had nothing better to do.

She settled into an office on the seventh floor. The room was labeled an office simply because it contained a desk, a chair, a small computer, and in the corner diagonally opposite these things, a small sofa. It was, however, a well-furnished room compared to some of the others in the building, most of which were all but completely empty.

It was not always so quiet and empty here, though. Almost half of the organization's members would be gone for the next week-and-a-half at least, depending on how long the conferences on Earth lasted. The meetings held by the Council did not require preventer attendance but Une had sent many of them regardless, perhaps simply because they would provide her with records of what was said and done much quicker than the Council would. A few other members whom she hadn't stationed at the Council estate had requested leave to attend and she had granted it.

Lucrezia was one of those whom Une had asked to go. _Asked_, not _sent_, somewhat to her surprise. Perhaps it was because of their former affiliation with OZ, perhaps not. Another theory she had as to why the potential mission had come to her as a request rather than an order was that Une had been able to tell how distressed she was and knew that if she were sent there against her will, she would be of little use or none at all.

She had turned down the offer. Under normal circumstances she probably would have gone, but there was too much she had to do here. Making sure Zechs didn't drink himself to death, for one. She had not given a reason for her declination of the offer but she suspected that there had been no need to do so; Une seemed to know that something was wrong with him without being told, though she would never mention it.

The Council sessions lasted on a standard of four weeks and were extended as long as necessary for any unresolved issues. There remained yet a few days before any such extension would be announced and for that time and any additional time that might be required, Lucrezia would be alone on this floor. She would not be around to enjoy the peace of the dark, empty halls, though, not after tomorrow morning.

Lucrezia did not have to ask why this mission had not been on request like the one before it had. The possibility of another war, be it between Earth and the colonies or two landowners on where one's property ended and the other's began, outweighed any personal dilemma she might be going through, and she recognized this fact just as surely and coldly as Une did. There was a big difference between listening to session after session of old men discussing every little matter under the sun and reporting their findings and checking out a situation that could quite possibly lead to another war, and if Zechs decided to will himself into death with the help of some more potent alcohol—God only knew where he got some of it—while she was away attending to the latter, there was nothing she could do except put up a strong front at his funeral.

Zechs. _When had she ever started thinking of him so harshly?_

She had often shared this room with him in the past. Though he had his own office on the next floor, more often than not he was more easily found with her, talking about any and everything other than war or, when he was at a loss for words, simply lying on the sofa and staring up at the ceiling as she typed and signed Une's beloved paperwork.

It struck her numbly that she already missed that.

She did not bother to turn on the light when she entered the small office. She was rather fond of working in the dark, these past few years especially, and she had every intention of allowing herself that one indulgence today.

She took off her jacket and tossed it across the room, onto the sofa. She couldn't see a thing, not even the slightest impression of the desk in the far right corner, but she knew her way through this mostly empty room well enough for it to require no thought whatsoever.

Lucrezia crossed the room, lowered herself into the chair before the desk. She switched on the computer and shielded her eyes to prevent them from being assaulted from the sudden burst of light from the screen. Once they had adjusted, she went to work.

Her last mission had been over two months ago. It had not been a very big deal—it was little more than simply supervising a conference between a handful of colonies from the L2 cluster—and she had been able to put it so far back in her mind that doing the paperwork had not occurred to her until now. It really wasn't necessary, she knew, despite all the legalities associated with preventer interference, and if she never did it, the worst she would receive from Une would be an admonition not to treat all her missions with such carelessness.

Zechs, as he always had since his return to life, had accompanied her on the mission. Something had been wrong with him then but it had not taken him so completely away from life as it was doing now, and as the conference droned on the two of them had begun exchanging bored glances from their posts at the back of the room, and once he had smiled at her. Rare was the occasion that any expression crossed his face, much less a smile, and this had surprised her. It had seemed almost like a peace offering for his distance from her, an offering which she had accepted.

They had endured only another hour of the conference. Zechs had stepped closer to her when he could no longer withstand his boredom and quietly suggested that they leave.

She closed her eyes for just one moment—for a moment was all the time she would allow herself to think of these things—and sat back in the chair, her hand still poised over the keyboard, remembering how the conference had ended for the two of them.

**III**

_She looked up at him with incredulous eyes. "What?"_

_She said this a little too loudly but the attendees of the conference, sitting around a series of tables on the other side of the room, remained oblivious to them, just as they had been when the conference began. _

_Again, the faint trace of a smile upon his lips. "Are you bored enough to want to leave?"_

"_Are you serious?" she whispered, knowing that he was but amazed nonetheless. She had seen Zechs sit through countless lectures that put even this to shame when it came to being sleep-inducing, his eyes open and attentive (except for a few occasions when they were cadets at Lake Victoria, during which he kept them closed beneath the shield of his mask), his concentration never seeming to waiver, and now he was asking her if she wanted to abort a mission because they were bored. _

_He gave a slight nod. _

_Had it been any other person in either the world or space, Lucrezia Noin would have stayed firmly planted where she was. If Midii Une herself stormed into the room and ordered her to leave, even then she would still have hesitated. But it was not just any person, nor was it Une or even the risen, decaying, stitched-together corpse of Treize Kushrenada; it was Zechs asking her, and in all her life she could not remember ever once refusing him. _

_She simply nodded. They both glanced back at the colonists. They were all enthralled by whatever matter was being discussed now, and it wasn't likely that any would notice the two supervisors slipping out through the back exit. _

_And that was what they did, stepping quietly as not to cause their footsteps to echo on the marble floor and alert the attendees to their early departure. They left as silently as a pair of specters from their graves, giving neither thought nor glance to the people whose words they were supposed to report on when they returned to Mars. _

"_What are we going to do now?" she asked once they were outside the room with the heavy door shut behind them. _

_Zechs shrugged. They started down the corridor that would eventually lead to the building's exit. After some time, without saying so much as a single word, he put his arm around her waist. _

_She missed a step, stunned. Even when it became known that the two of them had more than just a platonic relationship he had never displayed any signs of it in public, and rather than flatter her, his sudden lapse from his usual stoic front worried her. They had forsaken a mission—a mindlessly boring one, but a mission nonetheless—on his suggestion and now he was walking her down a court hallway with his arm around her…maybe now he was going to tell her what it was that had been mentally taking him away for the past few months and maybe that something was infinitely worse than anything she had ever imagined, and—_

"_What's wrong, Lucrezia?" he asked, addressing her by her first name, which he had used before they had become official soldiers and to which he had reverted once all their militaristic ties had been severed. He glanced down to his side at her. "You're tense."_

_She tried to relax and could not. She found herself unable to do anything but offer him a smile. _

_He looked at her a moment longer, then shrugged again and continued on, his arm still pressing against the small of her back, his hand still resting on her hip. _

_They left the building this way, and he guided her toward the small craft they arrived in. He assumed the pilot's seat and she sat at his side, silently overcome by that same feeling of wonder that always took her when she could be beside him without any of the formalities they had had to use while employed as soldiers, without any apologies or excuses, to simply be with him. _

_They left the colony. For a while she thought they were returning to Mars, then as they neared the red planet, Zechs steered the craft away from it, toward the great colored speck of light that was the planet Jupiter, and beyond that, nothing but space. She considered the possibility that he would keep going even after the lights of the colonies no longer touched their eyes; keep going deeper into the abyss of space until the craft ran out of fuel or he found something that provided the peace he so desperately had searched for, thereby ending her suffering as well as his own. She previously had thought that if—God forbid—Zechs ever did decide he_ _was better off dead, he would not do anything while she was with him but now she reconsidered that. He knew how much he meant to her; she had told him enough times that there should be no doubt in his mind about it. And likewise, though he often did not know how to tell her, she at least meant something to him, too. Maybe this was his final exit from life, and mercifully he was taking her with him. If this was so, did she really care?_

_No. This was the answer, plain and simple, blunt as it may be. No. She did not care. _

_Let him do it. They would go down into the grave together then, just the two of them, finally inseparably together in death as they never could be in life. _

_But a double suicide didn't seem to be what Zechs had in mind, not today at least, for after a while he shut off the craft's engines, letting it simply drift weightlessly in space. He lowered his head until strands of his soft platinum hair fell out from behind his ears, obstructing her view of his face. He clasped his hands below his chest and breathed deeply, as one taken in by a Zen enchantment. _

_She did nothing to disturb him, merely watched him as she often did while he slept. _

"_Have I ever been cruel to you, Lucrezia?" he asked after some uncountable time had passed. There was something in his voice that scared her. Something in those words that terrified her as his half-crazed threat to end her life along with those of the Gundam pilots had never been able to do. _

_She was too stunned to speak. _

"_Please answer me," he said softly, not as a command but as a plea, and this only scared her even more, for in all the years that she had known him, Zechs Marquise had never pleaded for anything, not from a friend, not from an enemy, and certainly not from her. _

"_No," she said finally, struggling to prevent her voice from faltering. _

"_Are you being honest?"_

_Still so desperate, so pleading. Like words on a dying man's final breath. _

"_Zechs, you know I wouldn't lie to you." And she wasn't lying, though she knew it must sound like she was, for in spite of all her efforts her voice refused to be steady. _

"_Yes, I do know," he said, and_ _strangely she could hear something that sounded like a cynical smile in his voice. "I never have understood that."_

"_I've never asked you to understand it," she replied. _

_He sighed wearily and fell back in the chair. His eyes opened—those beautiful icy blue eyes that sometimes were as cold and empty as a body without a soul and at others seemed as deep as outer space itself—and he looked at her. Those eyes were empty now. _

"_Am I frightening you, Lucrezia?" _

_She averted her eyes from his. "What do you mean?"_

"_You're shaking," he said pointedly, and gestured toward her hands, which had rested loosely clasped over her knees until he said this. She was shaking, she realized, and not only in her hands; her entire body, from her head all the way down her legs, seemed to be trembling. She had not been aware of this until now and she tried to regain control of herself, but the more she tried the harder she shook. _

"_Am I frightening you?" he repeated dully. _

_Unable to speak under the emotionless scrutiny of his eyes, she could do nothing but simply shake her head. _

_He leaned forward, brushed one of his hands against the side of her face. "I am being unfair to you, though, aren't I, Lucrezia?"_

"_Zechs…what are you talking about?"_

_His hand went over her face again. He leaned even closer to her and guided her face toward him until their lips were all but touching. She could feel his steady, calm breathing against her own shaky exhalations. _

"_I'm sorry, Lucrezia," he whispered_.

"_Zechs…"_

_He looked into her eyes a moment longer, his own eyes still empty but also searching, perhaps seeking something that ultimately she could not provide. _

"_I'm sorry," he repeated, then he mumbled something to himself and released her. He rose from the chair and, casting her only one more glance, he left the cockpit. _

_Wearily, dejectedly, she sighed and leaned forward in her own seat, resting her elbows on the control panel. Her head fell into her upturned palms, her eyes closed, lips parted in wordless despair that seemed more and more with each passing day to be her constant companion. It was the posture of one either in tears or in prayer and the latter was what she was closest to, although she was not aware of a single word entering her mind. _

_How long she stayed like this was questionable—it could have been anywhere from a mere few minutes to a few hours for all she knew—but she did not make a single movement until he returned. He entered the cockpit to find her slumped in her chair and to her surprise he did not go immediately back to his own seat. He went, instead, to her, placing one of his strong hands on her shoulder. _

"_You're trying to understand something that can't be understood," he said softly, and there was a faint scent of liquor on his breath. "Don't do that to yourself. I've caused you enough pain, you don't need to inflict any more upon yourself."_

_She raised up, looking at him, dry-eyed and silently praying for a strength she didn't possess. _

_She could have demanded an explanation for everything then and there and somehow she believed that if she had, he would have provided it, but she did not. Whatever had been slowly taking him away from her over_ _the year since they had gone to Mars, part of her was still merely afraid to know, and another part was afraid that knowing might mean she had to let him go. _

"_Yes, sir," she replied finally, as though they were still soldiers and he still of a higher rank than she, though he had never thought of her as being anything other than his equal. _

_He leaned down and for a brief second she felt his lips brush against her cheek. When she gave no response, he resumed the pilot's seat and restarted the craft's engine. _

_They did return to Mars this time, but the craft did not touch down at the Prevention Organization's port. Zechs guided it to a public landing area and brought it to a halt in the most secluded hangar he could find. He did not speak to her as they debarked but as they left the port on foot he linked his arm through hers. This was gradually becoming a more common gesture between the two of them and despite the past few months she had always taken this as a good sign. Zechs always had been able to express what he meant better through actions rather than words. _

_Their apartment was not far from the port and they did not bother with trying to get a ride. They walked through one of the most residential areas of the colony, arm-in-arm like a pair of young lovers who yielded not to despair or to time. And they were still young, she thought, both of them only twenty-two, though most who did not know them personally believed they were much older than that. War had taken their youth and stolen their innocence_ _before they were even mature enough to know what they were losing. Had they ever really been children? Yes, so many years ago she could barely remember it, she had been a child who knew nothing of fear or hatred, and Zechs had been one too, under another name and of a different standing on war. They had been children once but only for a few years, and then they were made into adults by warfare. They had missed out on everything that the young are supposed to find, from the trivial happinesses to those of greater importance, and sorrows that make a youth into an adult. She could not remember having a single good friend in her youth other than Zechs. The most special of occasions of her life had been funerals and her graduation from a military academy. Her first and only love she had found on a military base; her first kiss had been with her face pressed against the cold outer shell of a mask used to hide a prince's (her prince's) identity. Hell, the conference she and Zechs had just walked out on was the closest thing to a date she had ever been on, though she had never been concerned about such things, and every other thing a young girl is supposed to learn she had no experience in. And though the two of them had never discussed their pathetic states, she knew that Zechs's case was even more pitiful than her own. _

_And lovers…yes, they were that too, though their relationship contained none of the exuberant happiness that the term implied. She was happy with him and although he did not know how to say it she knew that he was happy with her, but the feeling between them was not one specifically of happiness but rather of comfort, of being lost together in the calm that falls after the storm. Their relationship had not been truly platonic for years but they had only become lovers in every sense of the word a few months ago, only after both of them had been able to come to terms with the fact that the wars were finally over and they had both survived them all and were no longer of any use. Those had been quiet days of peace when the two of them had ceased to exist to the world—including Une and the rest of the organization, as well as Zechs's darling sister—and had been concerned with nothing, oblivious to everything around them. During that time they had managed to reclaim some of what the wars had taken from them, and it had only fallen into the natural scheme of such things that they would eventually come to a boundary that, despite the rumors that had followed them since Lake Victoria, they had never dared cross. _

_A pair of young lovers, cut by bloodshed, scarred by war, still trying to pick up the pieces of their lives even now, fourteen months after the last battle, wasn't that all they were? No longer the Lightning Count and the Commander, no longer the Colonel and the Instructor or even the two lieutenants, what were they now but two nameless people who had only each other in the world? _

_These two nameless people no longer cut an imposing figure in public as they had only two years ago, and they were able to walk through this area of the colony without being recognized. This was nothing less than a blessed relief. Enough time had elapsed since Milliardo Peacecraft had launched the war that was supposed to end all wars that his face, even framed by his wild platinum hair, was no longer recognizable; likewise so much time had passed since any military organization had spread the legend of the great Lightning Count that his name no longer inspired awe. Lieutenant Lucrezia Noin had been known as a fearsome soldier only within OZ ranks. There were some both on the base and living in the Martian suburbs who had worked for OZ and did recognize them, but never was a word of the past spoken amongst them. They were free in their anonymity now, two nameless, faceless people walking among the masses. _

_Deep within her heart, however, Lucrezia had a feeling that their illusion would soon be broken. _

_It did not take them long to reach the preventer's base, nor was the walk to their apartment complex too lengthy to be enjoyable. The apartment they had been designated by the organization was on the fourth floor of the complex, and the elevator facilitated their return home in less than a minute. _

_Neither of them spoke as they walked down the empty corridor toward their room. All was silent around them; only three other people lived on this floor despite the number of rooms and they were all scattered throughout the halls. _

_He released her arm once inside their room, eased the door shut_ _behind them and quietly locked it. _

_She glanced to her side at him. "Zechs?"_

"_Hmm?" He turned from her, to the small table to the right. He swept up all the documents that lay on it and dumped them into a drawer. _

"_What did we just do?"_

_He leaned over the desk, switched off the visual communication transmitter that fed into the computer. "I believe we just prematurely left the site of a mission."_

"_Why?"_

_He stepped around the desk, reached behind it. The low hum of the dormant computer died as he ripped the plug from the wall. "Because in the end, conferences and formal discussions won't matter."_

Won't matter to what?_ she wanted to ask, but did not. She watched him quizzically. _

_Now he reached into the pocket of his uniform jacket and withdrew his phone. Without a word of explanation, he removed its batteries_.

_What was he doing?_

"_What would Une have said?" _

_Zechs favored her with a glance and raised eyebrows. "If Une had been there, she would have made it so interesting we wouldn't have left." _

_Before she could say another word, he stepped toward her, embraced her fiercely. She uttered a small cry of surprise as he brought his lips to hers, then she returned the embrace, her hands sliding up his broad back and tangling themselves in his hair. _

_There was no question now what his intentions were, why he had eliminated the possible interruptions. This was an act that they had only begun to engage in a few months ago and there was still some brief hesitation as they started: for a moment his hands fell away from her and his insistent kiss became desperate and her own embrace slackened as she thought but dared not say, 'I can't do this.' Then, abruptly as it had fallen between them, the moment passed and he was guiding her toward their bedroom, closing and locking this door as well, further barricading the two of them from the world beyond these walls. _

_He paused_ _before they could go any further. "Lucrezia?" _

"_Hmm?" His lips were unyielding to hers now so she pressed hers to his neck as she blindly began to unfasten his uniform jacket. _

"_Do you think what we just did was wrong?"_

_He was worrying about this now?_ "_Zechs_?"

"_Yes, Lucrezia?"_

"_Shut up."_

_He smiled then, and softly gave his characteristic low, quiet laugh. _

_He kissed her again and this time it was obvious that there would be no further hesitation. He undressed her quickly and efficiently; likewise, she undressed him, as his hands, which were fast becoming expert, traveled over her. She uttered a small gasp when he, almost violently wrenched his lips away from hers and slowly went down her neck, down onto her bare shoulders, down lower still until they were finding the same places his hands were. _

_He lifted her and threw back the covers on the bed, then lowered her onto it like a newly-pronounced groom would his bride on the eve of their wedding. Her arms slid about his shoulders, pulling him close to her as they started, and that loose embrace did not falter until the act was done. _

_They were well-practiced with each other now and fell easily into a familiar rhythm. This was something she knew only with him and he only with her, and had known only for a few months now, despite what some believed. Their first time had not begun this easily nor had it begun as abruptly as this impromptu interlude had. Two_ _twenty-one-year-old virgins sitting on the edge of a bed trying to stop themselves and knowing that they wouldn't be able to this time._

"Forgive my inexperience, Lucrezia," _he had said softly before he had taken her that first time, more apologetically than he had spoken of his betrayal of his father's ideals_.

"Only if you will forgive mine."

_Thus they had become lovers and thus they remained; and as thus they acted upon this bed they had shared since they had gone to the incomplete Martian colony. Their eyes met once as their shared rhythm began to quicken, and she saw that his eyes were no longer empty: they were filled by a depth that would make even the deepest ocean of Earth envious. Without a word she pulled him closer to her still, as he slid his arms around her, gently crushing her against him. _

_As he finished she whispered something to him, her lips moving against his neck, her bare shoulders veiled by his long hair and for just one moment he paused, as he always did when she said this. It was something no person knew save for the two of them, and she said it only when they were alone, when they both put away the proverbial masks they were forced to wear in public. The thing she whispered to him was neither sweet nor truly endearing; it was simply honest, the only thing they still had to remind themselves of how it all was supposed to have been. _

_Slowly, as she lay breathless beneath him, he withdrew from her. "Luca?" he said, still holding her against him. _

_She looked up at him inquisitively. _

"_Have you ever doubted my feelings toward you?"_

_She thought for a moment of how she should answer this, but really that brief consideration was unnecessary. "Yes," she said once her breathing had slowed some. _

_He looked away from her, his face darkened by an emotion she could only identify as shame. "Please don't," he said finally, bending to kiss her. "Not ever again. Don't."_

_She returned the kiss, and after a few moments that may as well have been hours of silence, they released each other. He lay on his side, facing her, and she moved closer to him, resting her face against his chest. Neither of them said a word as they lay there, and eventually they fell asleep. _

**IV**

Almost two full months had passed since that last mission that had begun so idly and ended so sweetly, and during that time—though she had never dared tell Zechs about this—she had already gone through a brief scare that she might be pregnant. That had been a while ago now, and the repercussions of their abandonment of their mission was not a child but rather this paperwork. She knew that Une really wasn't going to read over the report that carefully—Noin would not have been surprised if she never read it at all—but this was a necessity for the organization's files; and Une had once gone as far as to call such records a precaution.

"That was the problem with OZ in the end," she had said. "Nobody knew what the hell was going on."

And that was Une's biggest fear, Noin supposed, that one day there would somehow be a repetition of what happened with OZ and there she would be, right at the top of it all, with the whole thing laid at her feet to command, only this time she would be without someone for whom to kill, without someone, in the end, for whom to die.

The very beginning of the report she had already written with no problem, for it was only the final hours of the conference that she had missed. There was still a bit she had to cover before she came to what she had not witnessed and this should have come easily to her, for the sessions leading up to their unapologetic departure were still fresh in her memory, yet still she could not think of a single word.

"I really don't feel like doing this," she remarked to nothing and no one. Again, she fell back in the chair. Her hands slid down the keyboard, hitting a slew of letters that, when she glanced up at the monitor, caused her to give a weak smile at their senselessness.

The truth was that she really didn't feel like doing anything anymore. The truth was that for once in her life she was slacking at everything, from the insignificant to the important, and she really didn't care.

And the final truth behind this was that the illusion at last had been shattered, and that he was leaving her.

This was no great surprise to her, nor had it been the night before, when he had told her that he was leaving. He had been slowly leaving her for months now, ever since they had first come to the Martian colony.

Tears came unbidden to her eyes as she thought this, and this time she was successfully able to contain them. She was becoming so pathetic, so disgustingly weak. Then again, she had always been weak when it came to him.

He had not told her why he had to go to Earth; he had simply stated that it was necessary that he leave, and soon. She had asked why and he had not answered. She could only—and rightfully—assume that one of those men without names or faces had asked (or told) him to do it, and like the obedient soldier that he had so long ago been, he had agreed.

She didn't know who the people were whom Zechs spent so much time talking to, via his computer. He took every precaution to keep her from overhearing their conversations, and the few times she had managed to catch a few words the only one she was able to make out was 'counteroffensive.' A counteroffensive against what she had no knowledge, but, despite how badly she wanted to disbelieve this, she had assumed that Zechs was somehow involved in it.

And if this well-founded theory was correct, he had been involved in it for quite some time now. Their first night on Mars he had sent a message to Earth, and as time went on these messages became more frequent, until Zechs was reinstalling the visual communication device into his computer and then spending entire hours in front of it, speaking in his deep, eloquent voice and typing away furiously. She suspected that his involvement in whatever this thing (_the counteroffensive_) was had begun sometime during the year he had spent supposedly dead, but how and why was beyond her, as was how and why he had survived the explosion in the first place. He had never really spoken of it to her. After a while, she had learned not to even bother asking.

There had been a time—so far away now—when he had seemed to cease all communication with these people, though, those weeks (or a few months? She couldn't tell anymore) in which they had dropped out of existence. Perhaps he had only better concealed his involvement for her benefit then, but she really did not think so. But he had been unable to resist the call of duty, just as he had been unable to resist the call to fight during the wars of the past, and their self-imposed exile from the human race had ended when she awakened one morning to find him at his computer, typing an apology for his absence to someone on Earth. _The call of duty._

_The call to fight._

_Another war. _

"Shit," she mumbled under her breath. Was that it? Was something happening on Earth—had something _been_ happening on Earth—that would lead to another war? And if so, was it connected to the possible mobile suit production in the colonies that Une had mentioned?

She couldn't think of this now. She couldn't jump to this conclusion. If she did, it would undoubtedly drive her insane. She had only to finish this accursed report, then go home to see if Zechs was still there or if he had deserted her already, this time without so much as a simple, callous 'goodbye.'

_Or maybe he's getting drunk again_, a voice inside her head whispered, a fiendish, wicked voice that still reminded her of her own. She cringed at the all-too-plausible thought. He could very well be getting hammered at this very moment. He did it often these days.

The drinking had begun fairly recently, only a few months ago when he had just started truly distancing himself from her, and even now he still made every effort to conceal this knowledge from her. But their apartment was small and it provided only so many places where one could discard empty glass bottles. She had known long before she started finding such evidence that he was drinking and doing so frequently, though. He could try to hide the bottles and the glasses but he could not mask the scent of it on his breath or his bloodshot eyes, or the faint trembling that wracked his hands when he drank. And she could always tell when he was drunk even before she noticed these physical signs: when the alcohol went to his brain he withdrew even further into himself, refusing to speak or even to look at her, as though he was oblivious to her presence. Perhaps he _was _oblivious; undeniably, his mind was strong—it had to be after all he had gone through—but there were certain things it yielded to, and it would be no great surprise if alcohol were one of them.

Once she had been one of them.

She did not know why he felt the need to keep any of this from her. She did not question it. She had never questioned anything he did, not even when he had accepted the position of leadership of the White Fang, always trusting that his true intentions were right. His secrecy hurt her only a little. What caused the most pain was his decision to drown himself and all his sorrows in liquor rather than unload them all on her. She had offered her shoulder to him for such purposes years ago and despite all she had been through for him, that offer still stood.

And now there was a pain even deeper than what she had felt as she watched him drink his life away and then (for all she knew) sign his soul over to the devil (who currently resided somewhere on Earth) because he was leaving her.

This would not be the first time he walked out on her, but if he never returned at least it would prove to be the last. The pain she felt this time was more acute than what she had experienced before, so that she found herself unable to think of anything other than this. She had been a pathetic fool, believing they could live together in peace now when she should have known from experience that this would all happen again. They would be together for so long, then he would get a call that appealed to his sense of nobility and would leave her to fight for some greater ideal that, in the end, probably did not exist, or if it did, it did not matter.

Lucrezia groaned wearily and stared up at the report displayed on the computer's monitor. She couldn't finish it today. She probably would never finish it. If a war broke out as a result of her apathy, then she could go down in history as a careless, bloodthirsty would-be tyrant masquerading as a diplomat for peace. She really didn't care anymore.

She really didn't.

**Author's Notes: **I am simply going to apologize for this chapter. I wrote it in bits and pieces over a period of time without referring to what I had previously written; thus, many paragraphs contradict each other, or simply repeat what has earlier been said. And writing Lucrezia's character is really not my strong suit. I am very displeased with this chapter, but as so many people have already read it, and because the story is over and done and I am now only editing it again, I made only grammatical corrections. The story moves away from Noin after this one, thankfully.

In regard to the connection between Lady Une and Trowa, it was really only an idea I was playing with. I am a big Trowa x Quatre fan, but as I decided when I first began Ballad that **for once** I would not delve into the wonderful world of yaoi, I thought I would explore a pairing based on the Episode Zero manga.


	3. Chapter Two

_Chapter Two_

**I**

_Burning. The entire mansion is engulfed in flames, as though he has died and wakened up in the hell he deserves to be in. Fire shoots up the curtains and spreads to the walls while infernal rivers snake across the floor below, turning it into a molten lake. _

_The final scream echoes throughout the firelit halls of the Imperial Palace, long and high and thin, piercing in its caliber, tumultuous in its strength, glassy in its fragility. He stops running and covers his ears against the sound but his small hands aren't enough to block it, for already the scream has been burned into his memory and even after it ends it resonates in his brain; it is a sound he will continue to hear until the day he dies, a sound he will hear every time he is lulled into the embrace of sleep, a sound he hears on a night years later when he first meets Lucrezia Noin, a sound he hears in the moment before he offers his life for those of the people of Earth. He falls to his knees, still pressing his hands to his ears, and beneath the echoing scream he can hear his own desperate sobs. _

_The shriek ends. His hands fall limply to his sides. Huddled on the staircase, he can hear the frantic footsteps of the intruders' exodus, then one of them yells, above the roar of the fire, "I'm going to find the boy!"_

_Another series of footsteps, these louder and more urgent than those of the assassins who have retreated. They are close to him, leaving the room where his parents were murdered, fast approaching the staircase now, almost upon him with gun—or maybe knife—raised, closer—_

"MILLIARDO!"

_His sister's cry breaks his paralysis. She has been crying all this time, perhaps ever since the fire was set, but the sound has not registered in his mind until now, and he thinks with something like relief but too tainted by terror to be that at least Relena is alive, thank God, Relena is alive. _

"MILLIARDO!"

_She was calling for their mother at first, then when her cries went unanswered she reverted to calling for their father—_

…_but of course he won't answer for he is dead they are all dead…_

—_and now that he has failed her, too, she cries out for her brother, the only one who has survived the assassins' guns and the fire. _

_He runs up the stairs, only half aware that he is going farther away from safety and that he is more likely to be cornered by the remaining assassin up here. He must get to Relena. _

_The fire has just begun to spread to the second story of the mansion. The air is hazy with smoke and he chokes on it with every breath, but he cannot stop. He catches a glimpse out one of the massive windows as he passes it and sees that it is not only the palace that is aflame, the entire kingdom seems to be burning, and if he ever gets out of there he will still be trapped in an inferno, but he cannot stop. Not until he finds her. _

_There is a sudden crashing sound behind him as part of the grand staircase collapses. It is followed by a muffled scream and a burst of gunfire from an automatic weapon. He does not stop at the sound. _

"Milliardo_!" his baby sister wails again, her voice cracking. _"MMMIIILLLIIIAAARRRDOOOO!"

_He can't let her die here, his only sister, his sweet, innocent little Relena. He may be forced to sacrifice his own life in exchange for hers, but _by God_ he will not let her die. _

_He reaches her bedroom, throws the door open. The room is already filled with smoke but he cannot hear his sister coughing, perhaps because he himself is coughing so loudly. _

_He staggers toward her bed. If they don't get out of here soon they will both die, smothered by the haze as the flames burn their way to their bodies. _

_His hand catches the blanket and blinded by the smoke he feels about the bed, searching for the form of his sister. She isn't there. _

"Relena!"_ he yells, choking, turning from the empty bed. _"Relena, where are you?"

_She calls his name again, crying hysterically now. He runs from the room, back into the corridor. The flames are spreading more quickly now. There is not much time left. _

"MILLIARDO!"

_He follows the sound of his sister's screams, stumbling, one hand clutching at his parched throat. He can no longer see where he is going, for the flames have caused his eyes to water so badly that he can only make out blurred shapes among the ruins of the fortress. _

_At last he finds her. She stands in the middle of the hallway leading into the east wing of the mansion, her eyes wide in fear, fat tears spilling over her cheeks. In her plump hand she clutches one of the blankets she pulled from her bed when she fled from it. _

"_Milliardo!" she cries when she sees him, and she runs to him, throwing her arms around him, nearly knocking him over. He says her name but he can only whisper now, his throat is so closed. _

"_It's okay, Relena," he says, wrapping her in the blanket to protect her from the sparks and gathering her up into his arms. "It's okay now, don't cry, Relena, it's all going to be okay."_

_He stumbles onward with his sister in his arms, coughing, crying. He stops once when the choking overwhelms him and blood spurts from his mouth. He does not stop again, though, not even when he can feel the blood trickling down from the corner of his lips. He has to get Relena out of here. The flames are closing in on them and he cannot stop coughing and there is a very good chance he will die soon, but he cannot let that happen to Relena. _

_He reaches the end of the corridor and starts down the next one. He should have passed the back staircase by now but he has not seen it, should have passed the entrance to the balcony outside but he has not seen it either, and dimly he is aware that he is lost, lost in his own home, lost because he cannot see cannot breathe his legs are beginning to feel heavy he is going to die in here he is going to die with Relena he cannot save her they are going to die going to—_

"Zechs."

_He turns at the sound of the voice, expecting to see one of his parents' murderers behind him, gun raised. There is nothing. _

"Zechs, wake up."

_He feels Relena starting to slip from his arms but he cannot catch her, cannot even move now. His eyelids droop and from his throat comes a strange, airy rumbling sound. Had he been a few years older he would have recognized this as a death-rattle. _

"Come on, sleeping beauty, quit wasting my time and get up."

_Relena falls from his arms, cries out as her small body strikes the floor. He tries to pick her back up but he is unable to do anything more than whisper vain assurances to her even as the fire engulfs them—_

"Milliardo Peacecraft."

Groaning softly, he awoke to find himself not in a raging inferno filled with the echoing cries of his sister but in a lamp-lit apartment, not a small, terrified boy of six but a grown man. His icy blue eyes opened and he squinted against the dull light of the room, grimacing at the vile taste that had, as he had slept, arisen in the back of his mouth. He rolled over from his side onto his back, brushing the wild strands of his platinum hair from his eyes then resting his hand on his damp forehead.

There was a low chuckle beside him.

Zechs Marquise, former OZ mercenary under the rule of Treize Kushrenada, former leader of the disillusioned White Fang, former prince of the Sanq Kingdom, now one of the head preventers and forever a killer of his own men, shifted his gaze to the computer on the table across from him. The visual communication device was activated automatically whenever an image was transmitted to the computer, and he was greeted by the smirking image of his comrade —if indeed the man could be called that. The image was being transmitted from the bunker on Earth to Zechs's new home on Mars and was on a nine-second delay, and there were several pauses and an occasional glitch in the picture.

"Have a nice nap, Zechs?" Alsirae asked half-smugly, his face illuminated only by the monitor before him. The rest of the small bunker behind him lay in cold darkness.

Zechs merely looked at him.

"Same dream, I imagine," Alsirae went on, as though he thought Zechs actually wanted to hear this. "Did you make it out of the palace alive or were you caught in the blaze this time? Was Princess Relena in your arms when you realized you were going to die?"

Zechs still did not respond.

Alsirae dropped the subject, having something more important to do than torture him. "I have some information I thought you might be interested in." He held a slim stack of documents in front of the screen. Though Zechs could not make out a single thing on the front page, he knew immediately what this was. He sat up on the couch that had been his bed for the past week, still dressed in the same clothes he had put on yesterday morning.

Alsirae laughed again upon seeing Zechs's rekindled interest. "Thought this would wake you up."

The papers rustled in his hands as he placed them into a slot in a box attached to his computer. A similar device on the table in front of Zechs switched on and minutes later, the printer ejected copies of the papers Alsirae had faxed to his computer on Mars.

Zechs leaned forward, touching the stack of papers almost tentatively at first, then holding them as though handling an ancient relic. "This is it," he affirmed, scarcely able to believe the information he held in his hands.

"It's everything I thought you need to know before you come to Earth," Alsirae said.

"The Gemini."

"Yes."

Zechs met Alsirae's face, brows raised. "What of its system?"

"Similar to Zero, but without temporary, major mind alteration as a direct effect."

"And the reactions of the test pilots?"

"Surprisingly well," Alsirae admitted. Zechs could sense he still begrudged him a bit, for he had wanted Zechs to be the first to test the new mobile suit. "They all seemed to handle the system remarkably well. As a former instructor I believe Miss Noin would have been proud of them." He paused, eyeing Zechs in anticipation of his reaction. "How is Miss Noin, by the way?"

How was Noin . . . that was not a question Zechs had the right to answer. How was she? She was angry, of course, angry with him for not being able to tell her why he had to leave her. She was confused, and confusion was not something Lucrezia dealt with that well. She was a nervous wreck; she would never do it to his face again nor would she let on that she ever did, but he had heard her crying often lately. He had heard her cry herself to sleep so many nights this most recent month, he had heard her sobs from behind the bathroom door that morning. He had seen her looking at him, watching him as though afraid he would leave the moment she looked away even before she had known for a fact that he had to go back to Earth, and he had seen the tears that welled up in her eyes as she watched. And one night, over a week ago now, he had, on his last night in their bed, awakened to the sound of her soft crying and he had, without saying a single word, put his arm around her, and he held her until at last she fell asleep against him.

How was Noin? Some question.

"She's fine," he answered finally.

Alsirae saw through his words but did not pursue the matter. He looked over his shoulder at the man (_the young soldier why was it all coming to this again?_) who had appeared in the doorway behind him. The two exchanged a few words that Zechs could barely hear, something about having transportation ready for a certain subordinate who would be arriving that evening on Earth.

The soldier offered a salute and departed. Alsirae faced his computer again. "I'm sending the shuttle as we speak."

"I'm assuming that you're sending it to a neutral port."

"It's going to a private port. No preventer surveillance. If all goes well you can slip right under their noses and they will not have a clue what's going on."

"And I will be betraying the organization."

Alsirae laughed quietly and gave him an almost endearing smile. "You will always be betraying something, Zechs, be it your organization, your planet, your kingdom, or maybe only yourself. You will always be betraying something."

With that Alsirae rose from his chair and cut off the visual communication. The screen in front of Zechs went black. _You will always be betraying something._

"How true," he mumbled to himself.

He looked down at the documents with an almost dumb sense of wonder. It was very similar to the wonder that had overcome him the first time he had seen a mobile suit and the first time he found himself in the cockpit of one, but this was not quite as innocent as that old feeling had been. It was stained somehow, tainted by the years he had spent in combat with these suits, tainted by the blood that had been spilled upon his trembling hands.

Finally he paged through the stack, skimming it briefly then returning to the front and reading every word.

The mobile suit Gemini, named after yet another sign of the zodiac either in keeping with OZ's standards or in mock of them, was being built by Alsirae Trecais and his small legion of soldiers in an underground base outside the Sanq Kingdom. Such weaponry—_any _weaponry—was illegal within the boundaries of Sanq, but several of the outlying territories were either neutral on the weapons issue or supported it for private and basic militaristic—but not exactly combative—purposes. And the production of the suit was kept as clandestine as possible; few people outside of the small but steadily growing organization knew of its existence, and Zechs had just received the very first written report on it. The production of any new mobile suits, either as copies of older models or completely new ones altogether, for any organization had halted after the brief skirmish with Treize Kushrenada's dangerously misguided daughter a few months over a year ago now. There had been no efforts to restore any of the suits damaged in battle; those had all been properly destroyed. Not _all _of the old suits had been destructed, though, for—as unappealing as this seemed to Zechs—a good many people who were known as being connoisseurs of relics of warfare had paid enormous sums of money to purchase suits that had either been hardly damaged or not used in battle at all. So even as peace seemed to be prevailing on the Earth and in the colonies, a mobile suit was still present somewhere, unused and gradually weakening from immobility, but there nonetheless.

He had hoped to never have to see another one of the wretched things again. Now, even before this new possibility of war had become clear, those hopes were to be fruitless.

_Another war. _It was still just a possibility, but that was enough to keep him awake at night, to keep him dead on his feet in the morning, to keep him half-drunken throughout the day. They had all done everything within their power to prevent such a thing from happening, from the disarmament and reestablishment of a handful of pacifist nations to the destruction of damaged mobile suits and the abortion of cockpit systems in those sold to collectors; from the establishment of the Prevention Organization to the advocation of peace on both the Earth and the colonies. Even the leaders of militaristic countries had hoped that the Eve Wars would be the last great ones and that the incident with Mariemaia Kushrenada was the last minor one. The people were finally growing accustomed to lives without the constant threat of warfare looming over their shoulders, and now this . . .

The possibility of war was not something of which Zechs was just learning, however. He had known about this for more than a year now, even before he had become a Preventer. But he was one of the only people in space who _did _possess knowledge that the Earth's period of peace might be coming to an end soon; he was certain he was the only person on the Mars colony who knew—not even Lucrezia did—and there were a few others who knew on the colonies, but almost everyone involved was on Earth.

In so many hours, he would be joining them.

He had all but sworn he would never become involved in another war, should one ever break out. His mask had broken for the final time and he had not had another one made for him. He had destroyed the Tallgeese III shortly before leaving Earth for Mars and Lucrezia had been there with him when he did it, witness to his self-destruction of the symbol of his career as a soldier. He could not be called to fight; all records containing the name Zechs Marquise and listing him as a soldier, a lieutenant, a baron, whatever the title, had been destroyed, all the way back to the records of his existence at Lake Victoria. He had worked so hard to erase his old life yet, as always, it seemed, that life would not be erased; it would merely lie dormant for so much time as to convince him of its death before rearing its hideous head at him again.

He had no desire to fight again. He had fulfilled his vow to bring vengeance upon those responsible for his parents' deaths and the fall of his kingdom. But if the information contained in the document he held in his hands did lead to another war, he would have to, regardless of consequence.

It had ceased to seem real, the way all this had begun. He often tried to convince himself that none of it was real, that nothing in the world outside of himself and Lucrezia really existed. There had been a time when the two of them had lived safe within this illusion and not even potential mission memos from Lady Une or memories of the past could break it. But duty, like memories, is rarely able to keep silent, and slowly, slowly as a sadist's knife pressed against flesh, that sweet illusion had been broken, by reports sent to him from Earth even when he did not request them, from messages left on his computer by two opposing people who refused to be ignored.

He did not have time to think about this. He would be leaving soon and once on Earth he would have to be much more careful in communicating with his other contacts.

He leaned over the table and his hands fell into place over the keyboard. He reengaged the outbound communication system but did not open the private line to Alsirae Trecais's computer. As Alsirae had said, Zechs would always be betraying something, and it was not with the creator of the MS Gemini that his loyalty lay.

He accessed a second encrypted communication line —there were three such lines embedded within his computer— and entered the entrance code to send an outgoing visual that would establish the link between his system and another one on Earth.

The system that received the message was much different than the one to which Zechs had been connected earlier, for the people behind this operation were forced to take more drastic precautions than Alsirae and all those under his employ. The visual would not be provided on either computer until someone on the one opposite Zechs's typed in their own access code. This precaution —unlike some others used by this second and more obscure organization— was entirely necessary, for a face can be very incriminating, especially when the owner of that face was supposed to be working for the opposite side. If anyone really knew this, it was he.

He sat back for a moment, looked up at the clock on the wall. The Martian colony went by Earth time for now; in a few years, he supposed, it would have to have its own time system.

He did not know how long Lucrezia would be gone. For all he knew, she could be on her way up to their apartment this very moment, perhaps now only yards away from their door. He had to be prepared to cut off all the communication devices at a split second's notice. She could not know any of this, especially not now. He had tried so hard all these months to protect her from this thing that threatened to engulf him, and he could not fail in that at this point.

From the computer he heard a faint buzzing sound. This sound came not from his own system but was being relayed from the one to which he had just connected, and it acted as an alarm to alert that system's owner that a visual message was being transmitted.

Staring into the darkness that spread across the screen, he heard a chair scrape against a faraway floor. Footsteps echoed in a near-silent room, and another chair was pulled out, this one audibly closer to the computer. A series of keys were typed in rapid succession by fingers that still had yet to master the controls of a mobile suit but were well-trained on a keyboard, and within moments the screen began to yield from black to the image of the room on Earth.

They simply stared at each other for a few moments, these two men who had for so long been involved in an organization that might, should their involvement be discovered, soon result in their deaths; one who had tried to die and the other who had forced him to live. One was merely a soldier —one of high rank, but a soldier nonetheless, with no official title— and the other was the leader of the aforementioned organization, the one who had discovered the plans of an uprising opposing force while it was still nothing more than the subject of rumors.

Zechs had always found this man's face to be startling, though he was seeing it quite often these days and would be seeing it even more once he reached the Earth. There was nothing wrong with his countenance; he was, quite undeniably, a rather handsome man. Yet he was darkly handsome, the very antithesis of how many people saw Zechs, as a cherubic prince. His was a commanding appearance, the very physical form of dominance, and yet he was the one who would be fighting against tyranny.

"Zechs Marquise," he said quietly, his voice deep as the faraway thunder preceding the storm. "I had a feeling it would be you."

"Good morning, Odin."

Odin Lowe, the man who had, one year before the birth of Milliardo Peacecraft, gunned down the pacifist leader Heero Yuy, smiled faintly. His was always a cynical smile, even when there was no cynicism present in his words. "Is it morning on Mars?"

He glanced up at the clock again. "I believe so."

"Good morning to you too, then. I trust Miss Noin isn't there?"

"She had a meeting with the organization's president. I don't know when she'll be back."

"We'd best make this quick, then, hadn't we?" Again, his smile, made even more devilish by his black mustache.

Zechs, ever the dutiful soldier, nodded.

"You are coming to Earth soon, am I right?" Odin asked, leaning back in his chair.

"Alsirae's shuttle is being sent as we speak."

"He's going out of his way for you, Zechs. Are you aware of that? How many others would he have bothered to send a private shuttle for? It may not be a luxurious thing, perhaps even a used one with visible damage from a battle, but the gesture is uplifting, if not empowering as well, is it not?"

He didn't respond to this. "He sent me something today, which I believe you are interested in."

Odin raised an eyebrow. "The MS report," he said, "on the newly completed Gemini."

Zechs blinked. "How did you know that?"

"I've received a report from one of my field officers, for lack of a better term, that a battalion of mobile suits has been sighted in a remote area of northern Germany. Their first real test run, I believe it was. Weren't you supposed to receive the honor of being the first pilot of the Gemini?"

That smile. Those eyes. How was it possible that this man was actually working for good?

"Alsirae was disappointed that I could not got to Earth in time to see the mobile suit and its system fully completed. But he has assured me that I will get a chance to fight in one of what he calls 'a most excellent combative suit.'" He paused, and this time it was he who smiled cynically at the thought of Alsirae's endearments toward the suit he had created. "How did the test run go?"

"Very well, I've been told. Only two of the new soldiers managed to shoot themselves."

"I wasn't told there had been any casualties."

Odin laughed quietly. "No casualties. Even that would have been too glorious, dying while testing a new —and might I add illegal— mobile suit. No, these two pathetic imbeciles are now holed up in Alsirae's private hospital, both quite bruised and one with a bandaged leg from where a bullet pierced his suit and nicked him, but otherwise fine."

Zechs smiled tightly and shook his head. "Did the same 'field officer' provide this information as well?"

"Of course not. I can see you're already making a dire mistake here, Marquise."

"And what mistake would that be?"

"You are beginning to think that you're the only one working for the counteroffensive who is also employed under Alsirae. You may not know the others, you may not ever see them, but don't ever doubt that they are there. One of them just happens to be working in that hospital. He said that even the staff devoted to Lord Trecais had to stifle a laugh when they saw the poor invalids and heard what had happened."

"I'm sure they did," Zechs said, and gave no response to Odin's accusation of error on his part.

Odin regarded him silently. He had to know that his words had struck Zechs on some level, for even when he had been the masked child of a pacifist king beginning his training in a military academy he had been reprimanded a precious few times and it was something he would never be able to take lightly.

"Do you want the report?" Zechs asked finally, flatly. He held the documents up in front of the monitor.

Odin simply nodded, apparently deciding not to chide him for asking something that should be obvious.

Zechs fed the slim stack of papers into the machine beside the one from whence they had come. One by one, taking around a minute-and-a-half each, they were pulled into a slot in the machine, processed, and pushed back out, each one with a small crease in the upper right corner from hitting a wall inside the device.

"Where will you be staying?" Odin asked, his tone more conversational now, the cynical smile gone from his face, as he waited to receive the report.

Zechs thought for a moment. He was not considering the answer to the question as he appeared to be, for he knew where he would go after he had met personally with Alsirae. He really was not considering anything, save for what he would have to tell Odin if asked for an explanation of this choice that many months ago would have been rational but was now a bit lacking in logic.

Fortunately —or perhaps _un_fortunately— he did not have to answer.

"You're going to her, aren't you?" Odin said knowingly, as if he understood how Zechs felt about this. "You're going back to Sanq. To Relena."

He could only nod.

"Be honest with me, Zechs: have you told your sister of what we are doing? Of what others around her are doing?"

"No. Lucrezia knows more about it than Relena."

"And Miss Noin knows nothing."

"Exactly."

"Relena will take you in, even without explanation. That is unquestionable. But are you sure that she won't view your sudden appearance in Sanq as a threat to her power?"

Zechs met Odin's eyes. There was no condescension in the man's voice; every word of this he meant seriously.

"I cannot say how she will perceive it," Zechs replied. _Relena_. "But I'm not threatening her or her kingdom. I'm going home."

"Will Miss Noin be accompanying you?" Odin, given the name of the Norse god, this man of unbreakable stone, of critical cynicism, often of harshness and shrouded by some darkness that lacked definition, for once seemed to eager to change the subject. Relena touched something in everyone, it seemed. Even those who thought her ridiculous.

Mention of Lucrezia jarred him out of his thoughts of his sister, the Queen of Sanq, the one who had tried too hard to accomplish too much and was almost sure to fall. "Miss Noin will be staying here," he said, without bothering to conceal the note of regret in his voice.

"Are you sure she will be safe?"

"She can take care of herself. She always could." He felt an endearing smile touch at the corners of his mouth.

_She always could take care of herself, always, and when he had needed it, she had taken care of him too. _

"If Alsirae were to discover your association with the counteroffensive, if he were even to _suspect_ it--"

"She'll be _fine_," he broke in, too loudly, too harshly, to maintain the stoicism he had been projecting all through this conversation.

_If Alsirae were to find out—_

Odin raised a brow again, his eyes slightly wider, as if he were studying a rare specimen under close scrutiny, which might well be all that he saw Zechs as. A rare specimen of soldier that could always be counted on whenever sacrifice was a great possibility.

_If Alsirae were to even suspect—_

"She'll be fine," he repeated, regaining his composure. "She's safest here anyway. The farther away she is from me, the safer she'll be."

_But do you really believe that? _

"Perhaps you're right," Odin said. He glanced to his left; the document had been digitally recopied and sent to his computer system. He picked up the stack of papers and skimmed through them briefly, just as Zechs had done when Alsirae had first sent it to him.

"Marquise," Odin said after a few more moments of silent study, "I do believe that you're the first to ever see this report."

"What makes you think that?"

He smiled; the smile of a mischievous dark imp, the smile of a demon. "It's full of errors. Typing errors, grammatical errors, mistakes that _Alsirae--_" he stressed the name with a tight, knowing smile "--would never allow under normal circumstances. He was in a great rush to get this to you."

"Then I suppose I should be flattered," Zechs said bitterly.

"It is an honor that goes to so few." Odin returned his attention to the report. He narrowed his eyes occasionally as he read, and every so often something caused him to raise an eyebrow or give an amused smirk. His eyes traveled over the words on the paper with the same expression as they would if watching young children at play, as though he found something strangely comical about what he read.

Zechs would not have been surprised if he did. After all, didn't he himself think the whole situation almost hilarious? The minute the last war ended, preparations were made for another one, and the never-ending cycle repeated.

Between strands of light hair, he watched the assassin, his gaze as passive as ever it was. How ironic, that the man once known as Prince Milliardo Peacecraft should become an ally to the one who had —unwittingly or not— helped to bring about his own father's death. Of course, people changed over the years: the prince of a pacifist nation forsook his name and donned the mask of a soldier; the hardened assassin of the peace-minded leader turned his back on his past and from thereon spent his life trying to rectify his transgressions. The beautiful young daughter of nobility chopped off her locks and trained men who were really still children to kill. The beloved princess who commanded the hearts of all her people became the Queen who did not know how to control what she was given if there was no one against whom to be proven right.

People did change. They changed so much.

If anyone really knew this, it was Zechs.

He had owed his very life to Odin Lowe before they had even officially met. He had been told how Odin had found him, unconscious, drifting through the dark infinity of outer space in the mangled remains of the Gundam Epyon, but he had never known why the former assassin had chosen to rescue him, and after Odin had neglected to answer him the first time he had asked, he had decided that sometimes not knowing was best.

Ironic it was, yes, ironic and yet somehow fitting. And the story was long as it was ironic, with two simultaneous beginnings, both painful yet also redeeming in some indefinable way.

For Zechs, it had begun with his own death.

**II**

"_Until we meet again, Heero," he said, feeling his sanity leaving him still. With the last of his strength he reached forward, touched the button that would end his life. He pressed it, held it down until a delirious ache surged up into his shoulder before releasing it._

_The machine imploded around him, shrieking, flaming. _

_He caught one final fleeting glimpse of her face as he felt the cockpit being ripped apart, his sweet sister, the very embodiment of innocence. _

Relena, I love you. Please understand.

_He was torn from the shelter of the cockpit. Something —something hot, something on fire— rammed into the top of his head. He fell slack, disoriented, dying. _

_Another face before him. Lucrezia. Would she cry for him, for the death of the crazed monster he had become?_

Luca, I do love you. I always did, even if I never knew how to say it. I love you.

_The seat is shredded around him, and he is bent back into its flaming mass. _

_There is pain beyond the world, pain beyond the universe, beyond all that was ever created. Pain beyond the agonized howl that erupts from his throat. _

This is the way the world ends: not with a bang, but a whimper.

This is the way the prince dies: not with a bow, but a scream.

_There is pain and nothing beyond the pain. _

_Then there is darkness. _

_All is darkness. _

_All is darkness for some immeasurable amount of time, and then there at last is light. _

_He is dead, yet there is light before him. Gradually it spreads around him. _

_He is truly dead then. Did the Earth survive, or is it dead with him? And what of the others?_

"Don't worry about that now," _a voice, cool, soft, feminine, says to him. _"All that is passed."

_He tries to move in the direction of the voice, cannot. There is nothing but the light. _

_The Light. _

_Is this it? The light that visionaries and those who had returned from death spoke of? The light at the edge of death. Will he be brought closer into the light until he is a part of it himself? No, that cannot be, there is still something he has not done. _

_He is dead and there is light, and indeed he has a soul, and this light must be the Light, the Light of God, and he must go to Him now, and plead mercy for his own pathetic soul. Will he be accepted into that final light, into the eternal embrace of God, Whom he had sometimes doubted but had always hoped for, or were his sins too much, too many; were his hands too stained by blood to allow him entrance to the Heaven of his God? _

Ah, God, why this fear? Is this light like unto my savior or my damnation?

"It is not yours to wonder," _the voice responds gently. _"It is not time for you to take on such contemplation."

_He tries to find her, the one who speaks, but can see nothing but the light. _

"Who are you?"_ he calls, perhaps futilely, into the void of light and darkness. "_Where is God in all this_?" He has said this before, at some other time in some other place, as the light surrounded him. _

"He is here_," she replies, and her voice, her words, are beginning to sound hauntingly familiar, "_and He is everywhere. Waiting. Watching."

_So familiar. He knows he has heard this before, uttered from the same sweet voice. _

_Click click of the beads, glimmer of silver in the candlelight. _

_Her voice, soft and whispered. _

_Our Father, Who art in Heaven…_

…_pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death…_

_Ave Maria…gratia plena…Dominus tecum…_

_She falls silent, moves close to him, presses the beads into his hand. _

_My prince, please. _

_He knows, yet the moment he grasps it, it eludes him. _

"Where is my father_?" he asks of the voice. His father, who had tried so hard to save him from the foul bloodiness of warfare; his father, whom he had countless times betrayed. _"Is he here?"

"Where is my father_?" she counters, but her tone is not one of mockery. _"Where is he? What did they do to him?"

_Yes, what did they do?_

_My prince, my love, my orphaned prince. _

_There is light and there is darkness, and he is somewhere between the two. He is merely another shade of gray, pale amongst the masses. _

_There is light and there is darkness, and he tries to go forward into one yet cannot, yet he cannot stay within the other. The light is engulfing him. _

_He draws yet closer to it and whatever lies beyond it, be it God and salvation or Hell and its fury. _

_I commend my soul…_

_My prince. My angel. _

…_unto Thee…_

_Please, my prince, do this for me if you won't do it for your own sake. _

_Click click of the beads, glimmer of silver in the candlelight. _

_This is all too much! _

Oh, God, this is Hell, isn't it?

_Into the light, into the light, O Hell where art thy flames?_

_Her voice, soft and sweet, whispered in the silence. _

_My prince. _

_Lucrezia's voice. _

_Is she here? He is dead and yet he hears her, she speaks to him…is she here with him, dead and lost as he is?_

Dead, yes, my love, we are dead, don't speak don't breathe I am dead you are dead and we are here together eternally together in death.

_Lucrezia?_

I am young Malespina's bride, has he come hither yet?

_Lucrezia, where are you?_

At midnight with my dagger keen…

_Glimmer of silver; he knows what this is now, this vision of candles and whispered prayers. _

_Luca?_

I am young Marquise's bride, has he come hither yet?

This is the way the prince dies.

_It must be so, meet me in Hell tonight, my queen…_

This is the way the prince dies.

_In pace requiescat. _

Not with a bow, but a scream.

_The light the light THE LIGHT OH GOD PLEASE MY EYES THE LIGHT—_

The light. He was ripped from whatever visions played beyond his closed eyes, and for one moment his eyes opened just enough to allow him to see the light above him. Dim, focused, dead like a light in Hell's waiting room.

He was lying on some kind of bed, his limbs straightened and seemingly intact, his arms at his sides. It did not hurt as much as he had thought it would to move, meaning that he had not been lying completely immobile for all this time. However long that might be. He could not shake the idea that a great amount of time had passed since he had last opened his eyes or possessed even the slightest bit of awareness.

_I am young Marquise's bride, has he come hither yet?_

Where was he? Slowly, groaning softly under his breath, he pushed himself up into a sitting position and scanned the room. It was small, clean, with smooth walls and floors that gleamed in the overhead light. The bed was the only furnishing aside from a set of drawers on the western wall. It strangely reminded him of the technicians' quarters on Libra, perhaps for its simplicity and size.

_My poppet, welcome to your bed. _

The door across the room from the bed opened. A young woman entered, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand. She wore civilian clothes but the tag pinned to her shirt identified her as an RN.

Her head was turned away from him, and she laughed softly as someone called to her. "Not if you keep that up!" she replied. She turned and halted when she saw him. Her eyes widened; her mouth fell open as if her jaw had suddenly come unhinged. "M-Mr. Marquise," she stammered, her hand grasping blindly for the doorknob behind her.

Zechs opened his mouth to speak but before he could say a word she pivoted on her heels and fled the room, yelling into the corridor for someone to 'get Odin.' He stared after her, feeling only slightly shocked by his first encounter with another person in whatever amount of time he had been unconscious.

Less than a full minute later, it seemed, the door swung open again. He sat up, expecting to see the nurse or perhaps a physician. He was only slightly surprised when the devil himself entered.

The man was tall, slightly over Zechs's own height, and he walked toward the bed with an easy confidence that Zechs found both regal and intimidating.

_The devil started at her side, comely, tall, black as jet._

He was much older than Zechs, but despite this, his age could not be determined from his brooding face. His entire body was clad in black, from the long coat he wore to the toes of his boots. His head was crowned by a smooth cap of black hair, and his demonic smirk was bordered by a dark mustache. He might as well have been the devil incarnate but nonetheless he was undeniably handsome, possessed of the same darkness that drove tragic artists to their graves and drove mad the ladies who followed them.

"Zechs Marquise," the man said with an amused grin. He stepped closer to the bed. "Milliardo Peacecraft. You stole my redemption, you princely bastard."

Before Zechs could protest, he was silenced by the man's first being driven into his face.

The unexpected blow knocked him back into the wall. The back of his head slammed into it and something exploded behind his eyes. For a moment he felt the flaming sheet of gundanium alloy being propelled into his head and the disorientation returned. Blinded, he drew his knees up against his chest and shielded his face with his arms.

The devil gave no further assault. He laughed quietly as though at a weak joke, and as Zechs's vision cleared he saw that the man had backed away from the bed.

"Stop acting like a child, Marquise," he said, grinning still. "I'm not going to harm you. If I'd wanted that I would have left you to rot in space. There are some who would gladly put a price on your head, but you can rest assured that I am not one of them. Even if I were, it wouldn't be worth it to find you and keep your body fed and mobile until you regained consciousness just to kill you. You're worth the fortune of a kingdom, but your death is not worth your upkeep."

He waited.

The man crossed the room and took the chair from the corner. He sat by the side of the bed, clasping his scarred hands and leaning forward as though in great interest.

Zechs kicked the blankets down to the foot of the bed. The room was cold, but a return from Hell —whether it had been dream or hallucination or the beginning of some delirious reality— could make anyone grateful for the chill. "Who are you?" he ventured.

"Straight to the point, I see," he laughed. "We'll get to that soon enough, as well as a few other things you may find of interest. As you wait for an explanation, though, let me be the first to welcome you back to Earth. It was not easy to get you here, and I expect only a slight amount of respect if not gratitude for my efforts."

Zechs merely looked at him.

"I know you're wondering how you got here and how the hell you lived in the first place," the man continued. "To answer the second of these, I can only accredit that to the grace of God. My crew and I found you in space for reasons we will come to later, and you were brought here. You've been comatose for going on three months. You've missed quite a lot, Prince."

Zechs fended off a shudder at the title.

"And now we come to another answer. My name is Odin Lowe. Does that name mean anything to you?"

He shook his head.

Odin smiled. "Good. And it shouldn't, at least not now. Maybe there will come a time when its significance will be of use to you, but not now."

Zechs raised up in the bed again. It did not seem that Odin would decide to launch another attack on him. "You're not a prince given to vain words and paltry speeches, are you, Zechs? I only call you that because you seemed to prefer it when you were alive. I don't imagine that your birthname carries many pleasant associations for you."

Zechs nodded, respectfully ingratiated to this man of whom he knew nothing. "What do you mean 'when I was alive?'"

The smirk again. "You're dead, don't you know that? Even at this moment, you are dead. To the entire world, Zechs Marquise died the moment his Gundam self-destructed."

He thought in silence for a few minutes. _Dead to the world. _How many times had the world held his funeral now? "What happened?" he asked finally. "After I…"

The smile faded from Odin's face. He leaned back in the chair, suddenly too solemn, too grave. "Your sacrifice wasn't enough, Zechs," he said after a moment.

"What do you mean?"

"It wasn't enough. Most of the Libra block was destroyed but the explosion also sent another piece of it toward Earth."

He felt his eyes close. _Oh, God, please no._

Odin seemed to notice the change in him and he continued. "But your opponent, the pilot of the Wing Zero Gundam, I believe, did manage to destroy it as it reached the atmosphere. It almost cost him his life as it was supposed to cost you yours, but he withheld and made it out alive. So you see, Mr. Marquise, the Earth was not condemned to the destruction you tried to convince it you would bestow upon it." He paused, watching Zechs. "You look surprised by what I said, Marquise. Did you not think that some would see your true intentions behind all the ceremonious excrement you spouted about the necessity for destruction?"

"I knew some would," Zechs said lowly. "The others, the Gundam pilots, they all knew. I think Heero understood what I was doing most of all."

Odin's eyes changed at the mention of 01's name, and an almost proud light came into his smile. Zechs was a bit confused by this, but he made no mention of it.

"And obviously Earth has survived," Odin continued. "Let me be the first to welcome you back to it. Many changes have taken place, but as yet they have been beneficial."

"And what of the others?"

"The Gundam pilots? Scattered to the winds. No one is sure where they all are. It seems they are no longer needed. OZ was dissolved. Your former comrade, I'm not sure of her name but she was a countess–"

"Lady Une," he said, musing more to himself than to Odin.

"She is, at this moment, working to form some kind of non-militaristic peacekeeping organization. Next, I'm sure you're wondering about your sister, and I'll save you the breath of asking. Relena has gained the position of Vice Foreign Minister. She's quite an industrious young lady, it seems, a very good person for the world at this time. She mourns for you openly, Zechs. She dedicates many of her treaties and plans to the memory of her beloved brother Milliardo."

_Relena, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I did this for you, please understand._

"What about the soldiers of the White Fang?"

"All dead," Odin replied mirthlessly. "Most killed in battle. One-hundred percent casualties in the end. Even Quinze didn't make it out alive when the battle fortress was destroyed."

"Dorothy," he whispered, bowing his head for a moment.

"Are you talking about Miss Catalonia?"

He nodded.

"She wasn't included among the list of soldiers under White Fang, and she _is _alive. The last the public —or I myself— heard of her, she was returning home to Spain."

Zechs considered this. They had all made it through the Eve Wars then, miraculously, the people of Earth, the Gundam pilots, all those who had been involved in that great circle of enemies who, in the end, had truly been allies, all working for the same ideal.

There was, however, one more person who remained unaccounted for.

"Was anything ever said about a woman named Lucrezia Noin?" he asked, strangely half-dreading the answer. "She was once a lieutenant under OZ."

"What was her name again?"

"Noin. Lucrezia Noin."

Odin thought for what seemed like an eternity, his eyes cast upward. He seemed to know that this one was especially important to him.

"No," he said finally. "I don't believe her name was ever mentioned. That is not necessarily a bad thing, though, Zechs. Quite often, no knowledge leads to something good."

This did little to quell his fear for her. The only one of those whom he knew who had not been heard from since the final battle . . . this couldn't be. His mind raged against the possibility that something had happened to her, that he had lived when she had not._ Please, God, this could not be. _

He became aware of Odin watching him again, studying him closely for some kind of reaction. "Who was this last one to you?"

Zechs grunted a reply.

"News of her —or should I say _lack _of news— seems to disturb you greatly. Who was this lieutenant to you?"

"Who was Heero Yuy to you?" he retorted, thinking back on the man's reaction to the name.

"Touché," Odin said, offering another devilish smile. "That does not concern you now. I didn't come in here to entertain you or to tell you a story before you go to bed, Prince. I've told you what I know of your comrades because if I didn't, you would concern yourself over them so badly that your recovery would be hindered. I have given you my name because it is something you will need to know. I respect you greatly, Marquise, else I wouldn't have gone to such great lengths to preserve your life, but I am warning you: do _not _attempt to spar with me. I am in charge here and you'll do well to remember that." He rose from the chair and started toward the door. "Welcome back to life, Mr. Marquise. You'll find after you recover that there will be much for you to do."

With that he took his leave, easing the door shut behind him.

"What was _that_," Zechs mumbled to himself as he fell back against the bed. The back of his head ached fiercely, as did the entire left side of his face where Odin had punched him, but he found the pain strangely comforting.

_You stole my redemption._

What had that meant? And why had Odin not mentioned the abrupt assault afterward?

He was suddenly reconsidering the possibility that this might indeed be Hell, and his dark benefactor who claimed to have saved his life in space none other than the devil himself.

**III**

It was not for another two days that Odin revisited him. During that time Zechs was attended by three nurses in separate shifts and was allowed to take a hot shower and change into clothes other than the loose garments in which he had been dressed for the duration of his three-month slumber.

He was not the least surprised when he saw the majority of the uniform he was given was black.

These two days were spent mostly in idleness. The nurses talked to him some but too often they seemed to regard him as too much of an object of reverence to truly tell him anything. He wondered how much of their respect had been influenced by Odin and how much, if any, had existed prior to his awakening.

Odin Lowe did not begin their second meeting with an assault or even a wicked glare. He entered the room silently, and said not a single word until he had taken his place in the chair beside Zechs's bed.

"How do you feel today, Marquise?" he asked.

Such a question on his well-being surprised Zechs, but he gave no sign of it. "How would you feel if you were in my place?" he retorted.

"First of all, I wouldn't be in your place. If I were going to sacrifice my life, I would do it in such a way that would insure that I died. That seems to be a problem with the exceptional soldiers these days, you can't kill yourselves. You try —and in some damn good ways, I'll give you that much— but none of you seem able to relinquish yourselves to death. You and the pilot Heero Yuy are the worst at this." He paused, waited for Zechs's reaction, and when he gave none Odin went on. " 'How do you feel today; ' it's basically a multiple choice question. Choose an adjective that best describes your physical health, and if you want to, throw in an emotion that describes your disposition. It's not that difficult."

" 'Weak' and 'I want to know what the hell is going on,' then."

Odin smiled. "You're very much like your father, Marquise, whether you know it or not. A monarch who gets straight to the point, doesn't waste his time or mine. That's a very good quality to have but too few others who share your position seem to see it that way."

The reference to his father put to silence the questions that had formed in his mind. "Did you know my father?"

Odin shook his head. "No, not personally. I was a great admirer of his, though, even despite some of my actions during that time."

Zechs did not question this last cryptic remark.

The rest of the conversation was without explanation. Odin left him still not knowing why he had been rescued and brought here, and what Odin's intentions for him were. The only thing he knew of Odin Lowe himself was his name, but who he was and what he was doing remained an enigma. The purpose of the people who worked around Odin was still unknown to Zechs, as was their insistence on his full recovery.

Odin came to his room every day, but these visitations were all brief and non-explanatory.

A week after his 'reawakening into life', as Odin called it, he was allowed to leave the room he had begun to think of as a prison cell. Odin stopped in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest, his dark eyes narrowed in contemplation.

Zechs returned his stare, meeting his studious patience with patience of his own.

"Come on, Marquise," Odin said finally. He turned and took a step into the corridor. "And bring a coat and some gloves. I've often found that if prisoners are not given fresh air they become sluggish and useless."

Zechs looked at him, and Odin glanced back at him over his shoulder, laughing softly under his breath.

"You take everything too seriously, Marquise. Perhaps that's why you just can't let go when you're dying." He waited until Zechs joined him in the hall. The corridor was dark and empty, and when Odin spoke again his deep voice echoed throughout it.

"But I forget how young you are," he said, speaking now as if to a misguided son. "The young are allowed the vice of taking everything in life seriously. They believe that solemnity is a virtue and that displaying their pain for all the world to see makes them a stronger person. The young are misled by the older ones who are wrong and are terrified of opposition. Age, however, does not make a right or a wrong."

"But experience does."

"No, not always. Experience helps you to confirm certain conclusions, but those conclusions are not necessarily right. Take, for example, your sister Relena. She has lived in the lap of luxury as long as she can remember, knowing nothing of warfare or murder, then she witnesses one battle and in a split second she comes to the conclusion that all battles are meaningless. Do you agree with your sister's philosophy, Marquise?"

Zechs could not answer this for a few moments. They reached the end of the corridor. Another one lay to their left, this one illuminated by the lights pouring through open doorways, and ahead of them lay a staircase, leading only upward. They ascended the stairs.

"I do expect an answer to my question," Odin said once they had reached the landing at the top, which ended not in another flight but in a heavily locked door. "And be honest about it. I'll know if you aren't. It wouldn't be an insult to her if you disagree. She disagreed with you quite often in the past, but she still respected you. She would not be offended if your opinion differed from hers."

He considered still, then with a shrug he gave the answer. "No. I don't agree with her."

"Then that will suffice," Odin replied. He stepped forward, withdrew a set of keys from the pocket of his overcoat. Three of those were used to unlock the door.

The black-clad pair stepped through the doorway and out into a world bathed in darkness.

It had been too long since Zechs had seen this, and the sight of it overwhelmed him. This was Earth as it should have been, as his family had fought for it to be for so many years, as Relena would have it if she only knew how to fight for it.

The world beyond the facility in which he had been held did not lay completely in darkness, as he had initially thought; rather, it was drowned in pale silver, a light so clear and powerful that it seemed alive, spreading its nebulous tendrils over all that rose to return its bloodless kiss. The moonlight washed over the trees around them in smooth silken waves, caressing them all as gently as would a lover. Beyond the orb of the moon, where its light began to fade, the darkness of space was pierced by millions upon millions of stars, tiny glimmering specks, like the eyes of angels.

He had once said to Relena that the Earth could only be beautiful from space. It had hurt him to tell such a blatant lie, but the pain of telling it was nothing compared to what he felt now, as he stood transfixed by the crystalline beauty of the night.

His eyes traveled around the spot where they stood drinking in the scene like wine. The building they had just left appeared to be an abandoned military base, simple in design, exquisite in location. A ruined landing platform lay beneath their feet and spread about ten yards before them, ending in jagged broken upturn. This base had been deserted long ago, it seemed, for an entire forest had sprung up around it.

Beside him, Odin laughed quietly. "Missed the Earth, have you?"

Zechs knew a response was not required, and he did not attempt to give one. His actions were evidence enough of what he felt.

Odin began to walk toward the woods. After a brief hesitation Zechs followed him.

The light scarcely penetrated the dense evergreens, and Zechs saw Odin only as a black figure in the patches of light that shone through the leafless branches of the other trees. Odin's face —the only part of him that was not covered in black, as even his hands were gloved— seemed inhumanly pale in the shadows, and Zechs was vaguely aware of how strange he himself must appear: a disembodied head and a flowing mantle of near-white hair floating silently across the darkened forest.

At last they came to a single-lane road, which looked about as dilapidated and unused as the base. They walked alongside the road at Odin's lead for a mile or so, then the trees fell away and they found themselves before another landing platform, desolate and empty but otherwise intact.

Beyond the platform lay the ocean. Zechs could see the glistening of the waves as they neared the shore of the drop-off to which the platform gave way, could hear the night tide breaking against the rocks below.

Without a word, the dark pair proceeded to the opposite edge of the platform. There was a cement wall at its end and Zechs leaned against it, staring at the engulfing sea and the starry sky above it.

_Was she somewhere out there right now, looking up at these same stars and wondering why he had been taken from her? Or perhaps she was sleeping under this sky now, safe finally from war, her head with that soft violet hair resting upon a pillow of feathers from the wings of angels, her body covered by sheets of silk? Was it him she saw in her dreams? And if so, were they finally together as he knew she had so desired them to be for so long? _

_Where was she now, his Lucrezia, who seemed to have disappeared from Earth and space at the moment of his death? Was she close enough to hear the waves breaking upon this shore, or was she instead making her bed this evening underground, eternally still and never to hear such things again?_

"What are you thinking about, Marquise?" Odin asked, drawing Zechs out of his reverie. He had lit a cigarette and now stood by the waist-high wall, his own eyes fixated on the ocean. "Is it the Earth that holds your mind right now, or is it something more personal than that?"

"Perhaps it's both," he answered, and returned his gaze to the icy waters.

"Do you know where you are?"

Zechs shook his head.

"Vólos."

This pulled him away from thoughts of Lucrezia. "Vólos, as in Greece?"

"As in Greece, yes, also as in thirty miles from the Sanq Kingdom's borders."

_Relena_, he thought, and his eyes actually drifted behind him, in the direction of the kingdom he had fought, all his life, to protect.

"Why are we here?" he asked.

"In this specific location, we're here because I've decided you're ready to hear what you need to know and I will _not _have any kind of interruption. As for why we are near Sanq, it's because this territory and this base properly suited my purposes."

"Which are?"

"I'm beginning to see this as another of your faults, Marquise: with every battle, be it personal or between the Earth and the colonies, you had to be in the front lines, even when you didn't know which side was standing behind you. To lead the life of a warrior and step up to such challenges is one thing, but to naively accept a position to fight simply because it's an opportunity to do so is hardly anything more than ridiculous. There is a difference, Prince, to getting to the point and offering yourself automatically as either an ally or an opponent. You just came very close to crossing the boundary between the two."

When Zechs didn't speak, Odin went on. "It occurs to me that in the time since you've reawakened, you haven't inquired about your native land. You are standing very near to it indeed, so close that the very ground you now walk on is often thought of as being under Sanq's rule, and have you yet wondered how your kingdom has fared since the death of its rightful monarch and desertion by its child princess?"

Zechs looked up at him, no longer quite the chastened prisoner. "Desertion?"

"I wasn't sure how you would respond to this, so I have withheld it until I thought you were strong enough mentally to deal with it, if indeed it disturbs you. Relena has returned to Sanq to live, but she has voiced no aspirations to take the throne. Perhaps she believes it would dishonor your memory. And recently she has begun to go by the name 'Darlian' rather than 'Peacecraft.'"

This did not surprise him even half as much as Odin had apparently believed it would. The Peacecraft monarchy would die, it seemed, both of its children hiding their names and faces, and to blame Relena for not preserving the throne would be to accuse himself of the same crime. And it all seemed fitting, somehow.

_How does it feel, my darling sister,_ he thought, _to put on that mask and become somebody else?_

He was half-convinced he knew what her answer would be.

In the shadows, Odin regarded him with a smile. "Not so disturbed after all, I see. Forgive my misjudgment of your character. And don't think that I have merely led you off on this subject to avert you from your question about my intentions. That subject, as I explained, simply cannot be rushed into. Miss Darlian is a small part of it, and I could not proceed to answer your hasty inquiry until I had first acknowledged for you some of the recent changes that do tie in to my purpose. All circles do eventually close, Mr. Marquise."

Zechs returned his eyes to the moonlit sea, waiting.

"The world seems to be moving toward a time of peace," Odin began, taking another drag off the cigarette before flicking it onto the rocky shore below them. "All military organizations have been dissolved and entire armies crushed. The Gundam pilots —defenders of Earth and space and menace to the military— have disappeared along with their weapons. An organization is in the making right now that will work to maintain such peace. Governmental transformations took place all across the globe. The intermediary between space and the Earth is a young princess who pulls at the hearts of all who see her. War is no longer a necessary thing, in the minds of the people, nor is it even wanted. The ideal of total pacifism appears to finally have been achieved."

Zechs did not have to hear his next words to know what the world seemed set up for. Every cloud has its silver lining, the phrase went, and to counter that, almost everything that seemed too good to be true quite often had a dark underbelly. "I don't know what will prove to be the worst," Odin continued, "how close the world will have come to true peace when the rug is ripped out from under us all, or all the people who believe that this peace will last when they realize that it won't." He paused briefly to light another cigarette. "Just slightly over three months have passed since that great final war, and already I can tell as a certainty that another one is going to break out, beginning either in the north or in the east and inching its way here."

At the very mention of another war, Zechs paled visibly. He had known Odin was going to say something like this but no amount of foreknowledge could prepare him to hear those words spoken again.

_Another war. _

"Where in the north or east will it begin?" he asked, speaking slowly to prevent himself from stammering the words. Odin shrugged; such an unsure gesture didn't seem fitting of the man. "The first evidence of this war will occur in Germany, however. I'm almost completely certain of that."

Zechs grunted some weak response that not even he himself understood. When he was finally able to speak again —which may well have been half an hour later— he asked the only one thing he really could ask now: "What the hell is going on?"

Odin smiled tightly at his crassness. "Now you're asking the right thing at the right time. 'What the hell is going on'? I wish I knew that myself. I see, I hear, and then I act accordingly, but as far as the actual knowing goes, I'm as lost as are you. But I can tell you what I have seen and heard of what the hell is going on, and once I'm done there is a proposition I will present to you."

Zechs nodded gravely, and Odin began this darker narrative of the past months and what had not been known to the people of Earth and probably would not be until it was far too late.

The morose conversation instantly became a monologue. Zechs would have, in the beginning at least, interjected with a series of questions, but as Odin spoke and the words entered his mind, his mouth was suddenly dry. An outraged tremor wracked his hands as Odin talked of the formation of a force such as the one now in question, and that tremor spread throughout his entire body as Odin spoke of the manpower involved even this early in the chain of events. The thick, dark clothing and the coat and gloves were suddenly not enough to ward off the wintry air when Odin described a message he had intercepted from the fledgling military's leader to one of his subordinates.

Monstrosity, all of it, but his worst reaction came when finally told the identity of this leader.

"Wh-whom did you say?"

Odin repeated the name.

"But–"

"As I said, Marquise," Odin stated with utmost seriousness, "some of you simply will not die."

He whispered the name under his breath, and that same disorientation that had taken him as the Epyon exploded around him fell over him again. He felt his lips moving but they made no sound, and then he was collapsing against the cement wall. Odin leapt forward and caught him, and —perhaps by request; Zechs never would remember this clearly— held him up as he vomited over the side. Then, just as it had been within the fiery confines of the Epyon, all fell into darkness.

**IV**

He awoke the next morning in a different bed in a much larger room; apparently, it was decided he should be moved out of the cell. The sun's light shone into the room dimly through the curtained window, and the small heater beneath it actually seemed sufficient to warm these quarters.

Odin came to the room about an hour before noon. They discussed all that Odin had said the night before, and this time, miraculously, Zechs remained calm and passive.

"How do you know about this?" he asked, leaving the bed to stand by the window. He opened the curtains as he waited for Odin to reply.

"I know the fearless leader in question, for one."

"Alsirae," Zechs acknowledged, and not without an uncharacteristic note of disdain for the name.

Odin nodded. "And I have kept a close watch on him over the many years. I didn't know it when he resurfaced because I, in my naivete, assumed that he was indeed dead. I discovered differently by accident; in fact it was through a transmission interception of a message sent from a computer that was once the property of military personnel. I always have found those rather easy to infiltrate. And when I stumbled upon the discovery, I sent two allies who knew better than to cross me to the location specified in the transmission, and they confirmed what the message had pointed to. Then I went to Germany to see it for myself."

Zechs lowered his eyes, thinking. It was gradually becoming easier for him to step into the stoic front he had lived behind as though it were a mask for almost all his life. "Last night you mentioned something about a proposition," he said.

"Yes, I did, and now that you don't seem to be suffering any violent reactions to such knowledge, I will make that proposition."

Zechs looked at him, reminded of the time Quinze had tracked him down with an offer that he had not wanted to hear but accepted anyway.

The proposition of which Odin spoke was much longer than anything a member of White Fang could have come up with, and the risks he outlined were so much greater that when Zechs had heard it out there was no way he could have turned it down.

**V**

He was still treated like a patient for the next few weeks. The same three nurses visited him daily; the two who did not wear wedding bands began to flirt him occasionally. They were all part of Odin's plan as well as he was now, they probably more knowledgeable than he on the situation.

He was allowed to walk about the facility freely, but most of the others he knew who worked for Odin were in another building connected to this one by an underground corridor, and he had not yet decided to immerse himself in people.

Two weeks after Zechs had accepted the offer to be part of this clandestine operation referred to solely as the 'counteroffensive,' he and Odin left the base again. Zechs had learned his way through the woods by then and did not need to take so much as a glance at Odin to get through them.

It was during the conversation that followed that Zechs learned who Odin Lowe was. He knew that only a very select few —if there was indeed anyone— knew anything about the man personally, and he did not understand why he chose to bestow such well-kept knowledge upon him. He did not ask, either.

Odin left out several parts of his story, saying only what he felt Zechs should or deserved to know. Nonetheless, Zechs was left speechless.

Before him stood the man who had changed the course of life in outer space and on Earth with a single bullet. Before him was the man who had killed the pacifist leader Heero Yuy, and in doing so had facilitated the assassination of Zechs's own family. This was the man who had —for reasons he omitted in this narrative— taken in the orphaned child who would one day become the pilot of the Gundam 01, perhaps the strongest of the pilots, Zechs's greatest opponent who was also one of his greatest allies. This was the one responsible for the elimination of the Cosmos Arm. This dark-eyed man who seemed in all simplicity to be a living, breathing enigma in himself.

And Zechs listened to all this silently and solemnly, and he strangely was not surprised at all. He did not feel anything, not even when Odin proceeded to tell why he had rescued him in space, and how Zechs's 'death' had stolen his redemption.

"You wanted to know who I am," Odin said once he finished. "So I told you. I do regret a great many of the things I've done with every ounce of every emotion I possess, but it is not you to whom I must make those apologies, or anyone else." He stopped, and the silence that fell between the two of them seemed almost palpable.

"This information is not free, however," he went on, staring out at the sea just as Zechs was doing, watching the sun rather than the pale sphere of Apollo dance across the waves. "I have given you a story that spans my lifetime, and from you I ask only two details."

Zechs cast him an expectant glance, eyebrows raised in interest.

"The first detail regards a person; the second, something you said once. Be honest, Marquise, for I have been so with you. I know a great deal about your life already, so these two details will suffice for a condensed story of your life. One for one, Mr. Marquise."

Zechs nodded.

"Who is this lieutenant you eventually ask everyone you come into contact with if they have heard of? I ask this because this person seems of great importance to you, and I'm curious as to why they seem to be placed above even your sister at times."

He gave no hesitation in responding. He saw no use to do so. "Her name is Lucrezia Noin," he said quietly, his eyes averted t the side. "I attended the Lake Victoria Academy with her. She was at the top of the class, would have been the top student if she hadn't intentionally lost to me. She could defeat anyone there in an MS, because she didn't know how to stop. Others could only fight so long before they got tired, and she couldn't feel a thing when she fought."

"I'm assuming she even told you this."

"She did. She was recruited as an instructor there and joined OZ as a soldier when the Gundams were still relatively new threats."

"And afterward?"

"She worked with me for a while, then she returned to Sanq as a Commander and a guard of the princess."

Odin waited to be sure he was finished, then said, "I truly am sorry that you have been unable to find news of her, then. She seems to command your heart in a way no one else, not even the Princess Relena, does."

Zechs looked up at him too quickly to conceal the half-shocked expression on his face.

"You didn't have to say it," Odin assured him, seeming to read his thoughts. "You could have refrained from answering the question and I still would have known. It's in your eyes when you ask about her. You're very clever at hiding your expressions, Marquise, but it's impossible to hide one's eyes."

"What was the second detail?"

Odin grinned. Even now, all these days after they had first met, his smile still made Zechs uneasy.

"The second detail," he said, "is the meaning of something you said when we first tried to dig your body out of the wreckage of your Gundam. You were unconscious then but when one of us tried to move you, you cried out and started whispering something almost like a chant to yourself."

"As you said, I was unconscious. I don't remember anything like that."

"I didn't expect you to. You were whispering about silver 'glimmering in candlelight' and the 'clicking of beads' and the beads then being placed into your hand."

There was no need for Odin to list three specific things that Zechs had said. He knew from the word 'silver' what Odin meant, and the memory assaulted him from years in which he had either failed to recall it or had simply never thought back to that day. How could he have in years past desecrated that memory by half-convincing himself that it had never actually happened? Had Lucrezia remembered it all this time? Of course she had. She remembered everything that had ever happened between them, probably down to the expressions on their faces at the precise moment they first saw each other.

"One for one," Odin reminded him.

He sighed wearily. And he _was_ weary, sick of it all already. Odin had told him more and more with each visit about what was happening and what he knew of the why of it all, and Zechs, though he could never resist the call to fight for peace, already wanted to slink away into the night, leaving this battle in the hands of someone who cared. He did not know where he would go if indeed he managed to both escape the facility and get past the guards at the end of the road leading here, but what did that matter? Perhaps he would go to Sanq and ask Relena's forgiveness. Perhaps she would take him in, and he would live there with her as she played the part of the constant misunderstanding princess, reminding him always of his own darkness that became blacker still against her light.

Or perhaps he would travel the Earth seeking news of Lucrezia, and if by God he found her, would he be able to approach her? No, he knew he would not. He would go to her in the night as she slept, appearing at her bedside as a lost specter would, and what then when she awakened? Would she accept him again?

Perhaps she would not.

He wanted to leave here, and he sensed Odin knew that. He _could _leave here if he so chose; the others there, all except Odin, left or at least disappeared into their own quarters at some time, and he could find a way out of there that would not take him past anyone else. He was not truly a prisoner, yet he could not leave.

He was a captive of his own making, a prisoner not of Odin Lowe and his organization but of his own desire to wage this battle, to, if God allowed him, bring it to an end. The blood on his hands had freed him from his own sister's naïve ideals, but at the same time had chained him to war and ultimately, to peace.

"Are you going to give me an answer?" Odin asked. As it always did, his voice sounded slightly amused at something only he could see.

Zechs shrugged.

"You pretend it doesn't matter," Odin said. "You use every gesture or action you've ever seen someone else use when they try to hide whatever it is they feel, but the mechanical manner in which you perform them gives you away. Whatever it means, it's greatly personal to you, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Would I be correct in assuming that it has something to do with your dear lieutenant?"

"Yes."

"Then, since you do not seem eager to tell me, it must suffice to say that the 'glimmer of silver' is a memory of your beloved Miss Noin that you hold too dearly to impart. You hold everything sacred, don't you, Marquise?"

He shook his head. "No. But I do think there is something sacred in all things. God did create it all, didn't He?"

For the first time since they had met, Odin Lowe lost his composure. His dark eyes widened and he took a step backward, staring at Zechs as though at a ghost.

He smiled then, that same damnable smile that was becoming so familiar to Zechs, and regained his signature strong, unchanging front.

"Do you really believe in God?" he asked. "Even after all that's been done to you, all you've seen?"

"In the past I doubted His existence," he said quietly. "On the battlefield, as you watch everyone around you being murdered for some ideal you yourself do not understand and all the while knowing that by all rights you should be the next to lose your life, that can make it hard to maintain such beliefs. But just as I have seen things that made me question the existence of God, so have I also seen things that make it impossible for me to dismiss his presence." He paused, remembering the night of the 'glimmer of silver' Odin had spoken of. This was perhaps the most Zechs had ever said to him at one time. "Yes, I do believe in Him, and I do so willingly. Are you denying your own beliefs, Odin?"

Odin regarded him with great interest. "And what beliefs would those be, Mr. Marquise?"

"You said that it was not me nor any other man you needed to make apologies to. I made the assumption you were talking about a power beyond that of man."

Not another word was spoken between them for some time.

"You're a perceptive devil, aren't you, Marquise?" Odin said finally. "Yes, your assumption is correct, just as many of mine about you have been. But my belief is not something I deny or hide. I simply _guard _it."

"Very well then," Zechs said. "You guard your faith just I guard certain ones of my memories."

Odin chuckled under his breath. That chuckle metamorphosed into a true laugh, and that true laugh became a hysterical one.

Thus had concluded their final explanatory conversation before Zechs had left the base. The two of them had shrugged deeper into their thick overcoats and walked back to the former base, made discreet by the cover of the night that had freshly fallen.

A few more narratives had followed this, but they were all brief, made simply so that Zechs understood what action would be taken, or perhaps the motives behind the actions. He wondered how many other of his fellow subordinates Odin bothered to keep so informed.

"They are all informed of _something_," Odin replied when Zechs had asked him. "I tell each one what I think they will most understand. Some things I've told you, many of those around you are completely in the dark about, just as they know certain things you're not aware of. But I have told you quite a bit more than I have anybody else, save, of course, for my highest subordinate, and even he doesn't know everything about me. I prefer to keep some anonymity, even if my name was never associated with all the sins of my past. I'm sure you know exactly how I feel, Prince."

Zechs had spent quite a lot of time wondering who Odin's highest subordinate was. He never asked, however. He had his suspicions, and they were all but completely confirmed during that time.

He was given freedom to leave the base as he wished, but he declined this privilege, save for the occasional walks he would take through the woods in late evening or at night, to the deserted landing platform that overlooked the ocean. He always went alone now, and he spent these solitary walks thinking of Lucrezia. Where was she now? If she was still alive, would not _some _mention of her been made by now? Surely it would have, though Zechs fought with all his soul not to believe that.

Meanwhile, he had much work to do here, as promised, as he learned more about the counteroffensive and its opponents with each day.

Would he never be done with warfare? Would the Earth never be done with it?

Three months after he had awakened from his death to find himself in this base (ironic it should be him Odin had thought to rescue), he heard news of Relena, something about a project she hoped to soon get underway on the planet Mars. He managed to hear only the final minutes or so of her global broadcast, but those few moments were enough to further inspire his efforts in the counteroffensive.

Even greater news had come to him a month following that. The former OZ Countess Midii Une (whom some still referred to as 'Lady') had officially established her Prevention Organization. He had felt a tight smile cross his face as he watched her take the podium, then briefly, as the camera swerved to follow her movement through the crowd, he caught a glimpse of something that made his blood run cold.

_It couldn't be…_

But it was, he saw, and the emotion that overcame him then was one that could not and should not be described.

Two other people trailed Une, taking their places on either side of her as she delivered the Prevention Organization's first public address. The first person was the organization's president, an old man whose name Zechs had long since forgotten who had never been much for public speaking.

The second was Lucrezia Noin.

She was still beautiful, just as she always would be to him, her lovely Florentine face solemn yet not stern-looking in the least. Her dark violet hair was a bit longer than it had been, making her look almost more like the young girl he had met and by whom he had been so fascinated (_had fallen in love with why don't you just admit it?_) at Lake Victoria. She wore the apparent uniform of the preventers but unlike Une's, hers ended in pants rather than a skirt. His tight grin widened into a true smile as he remembered how hard it was to get her into a dress.

She stood placidly to the left of her superior, her dark eyes flowing under the conference room's lights as though holding within them a living fire, her slender form that of an angel amidst the crowd of mere mortals who were infuriatingly incapable of comprehending how wondrous and beautiful she was.

He did love her, always had, always would, despite wherever life took the two of them. He could not deny that now. Had she known how he felt when he had made his fiery exit from her life? Probably not, he realized, horrified suddenly at the thought of it. He had always believed she knew, but had she really? So many times in the past she had confessed her constant love for him, but had he ever allowed her to know that those feelings were requited?

The answer was not one he had to search for: no. No, he had not.

He found he could no longer listen to what Une was saying. His eyes were transfixed on Lucrezia's face; his ears hearing her voice in all the memories he held of her, all of which were utterly sacred to him. At the end of the announcement, Une introduced her partner in the organization, and Lucrezia looking every bit as dignified and regal as life would have had her be if not for the wars, stepped forward.

"The efforts of this organization and any successes thereof are dedicated to the memory of our beloved Prince Milliardo Peacecraft," she said, and the audience before her rose, some members clapping proudly, others yelling at the top of their lungs, and as she witnessed their reaction, she smiled.

"_Luca_," he whispered, bowing his head.

She was alive; she had made it out of the Eve Wars along with the rest of them. They had all survived then, and for what reason? Perhaps there was no reason, save that they all learned from each other in some way. Did reasons always have to be complex? No, they did not. God was both complex and simple in His purposes, and perhaps reasons really were not primarily necessary but rather it was action. They had all lived and still, just as did every other human being, they each owed both a death _and _a life.

And would their lives be intertwined again? Oh, God, he hoped so.

Meanwhile, in the north, the forces of their enemy were growing in power.

And Zechs was finally given his role in this great scheme of war and peace. It was one of the most dangerous ones he could possibly play, but that did not disturb him in the least.

He revealed the obvious fact of his survival to Alsirae Trecais in Germany, under the cover of naivete and hopelessness, and he was instantly accepted as a high member of Alsirae's military.

The irony of it all was enough to make him smirk even now.

This was exactly what Odin had hoped for. Zechs was hardly the only member of the counteroffensive employed under Alsirae as well, but because of his old connections to Alsirae, he was the one placed in the greatest danger.

In winter that year, something happened that temporarily put on hold the plans of both clandestine organizations. Vice Foreign Minister Relena Darlian was kidnapped and her captor, the disillusioned Mariemaia Kushrenada, the young daughter of Treize, had tried, through military force, to assume the title of queen of the earth. The Prevention Organization had been called into the matter and the Gundam pilots —along with their remodeled weapons— had reemerged to fight Mariemaia's soldiers.

Zechs had been given leave from both of his superiors to fight this battle, and this time he took the opportunity.

Dekim Barton (who truly was the mastermind behind the tyrannical incident) had been vanquished, assassinated by one of his own soldiers. His seemed to be the only death that mattered in that impromptu war.

They had all been reunited then, the Gundam pilots and their formerly militaristic allies (if indeed they could be called that), and ultimately, he and Lucrezia. He had not been able to return to either base; instead, he had accepted Relena's proposition regarding the Martian terraforming project, and he had asked Lucrezia to come with him.

_His beloved Lucrezia._

They had lived happily and in peace for a while, and in that time Zechs had not cared about Alsirae Trecais and what he planned to do, or Odin Lowe and his counteroffensive. They had even gone as far as to ignore their duties to the Prevention Organization. They had had only each other in those days, and for the first time they had both begun to know happiness, if that were even possible for two people such as themselves.

But war had found them again, just as it always had in the past, and soon the messages from Odin and Alsirae could no longer be ignored.

So many months had passed since then; fourteen months had elapsed since he and Lucrezia's arrival on Mars. He could not even drink away the thoughts of how quickly everything around them had changed anymore.

And now he was leaving her again. He had made a promise to her once years ago that he would never leave her, and this would be the third time he had broken it.

Perhaps it would ease her pain some if he told her what was going on, why he had to go. But he could not do that, not if he wanted to protect her from it.

Odin dropped the MS report on the desk and looked up at Zechs, smiling. "He's not trying to be impressive this time, is he?"

"What do you mean?"

"There are no modifications or specialized weaponry on the Gemini suits. He's using the system to push the pilots beyond their own natural limitations in battle, but other than that, this suit is nothing more than a larger, better-looking Leo."

Zechs acknowledged this with a nod. "Perhaps it is simplicity that he wants."

"He's not going to modify it or specialize it in any way because he doesn't believe he's going to have a worthy opponent. But I wouldn't dismiss these suits as being weak, not yet at least. I'm assuming you read where the report stated that the outer walls of each suit are constructed of reinforced metals."

"Do you think it could be gundanium?"

Odin shook his head. "No. It's too expensive to use gundanium alloy in mass production. He's done something else to them."

Zechs considered this for a moment, then inquired about the counteroffensive's own mobile suits.

For some reason beyond him, Odin laughed. "We've decided upon a name for our resident suit," he said, laughing softly still. "Sagittarius."

Zechs blinked. "Why Sagittarius?"

"Must you induce another admonishment from me with Miss Noin expected to return at any moment, Marquise?"

Zechs simply watched the screen. After all these months in which they had had been involved in the counteroffensive together, Odin was accustomed to his passive lack of response.

"You take everything so seriously, Prince," Odin explained, sounding very much as he had when he'd said it to Zechs the first time. "There are some things in life that can only be taken seriously, and this entire matter we find laying at our feet is something you had damn well take seriously, but you should allow yourself the indulgence of looking into something serious and finding the underlying humor of it all." He paused, giving Zechs enough time to absorb his words before continuing. "The suit will be named Sagittarius because of how utterly ridiculous it sounds. 'MS Sagittarius.' Can you think of an astrological sign that sounds more ridiculous than that? It does not hurt, either, that the month under Sagittarius was not the one in which the MS's production began."

"Whose idea was this?" he asked, and despite himself he did feel a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"The christening of the mobile suit Sagittarius is the work of one of your fellow traitors to Alsirae."

Zechs fended off a shudder at the word 'traitor.'

"How was your dear superior this morning?" Odin asked. Such a question on Alsirae's well-being was a rarity, usually leading up to some insulting comment.

Zechs shrugged. "He told me I would always be betraying something," he said.

Odin lowered his head for a moment in consideration. His dark eyes fell closed, and for the next minute he remained like that, the only sound his deep, meditative breathing. "Perhaps you shall."

Nothing more was said for some time.

"Thank you for the report," Odin said finally, guiding the conversation to an end. "There are some pages I could send you, general information on Sagittarius, but with less errors than Alsirae's. I'll send them to your computer in a few minutes."

Such hasty closings were a characteristic part of their conversations over the computer, and all Zechs could do —all that he was expected to do— was mumble some ingratiating remark and turn off the outgoing communications device. He fell back against the sofa, tried to doze off again. He had almost succeeded in doing so when one of the devices hooked up to the computer was activated and, humming steadily, began to eject on page after another of the construction report for the MS Sagittarius.

Zechs read through the report in the same manner in which he'd read Alsirae's. When he was done, having abandoned all hope of sleep, he went into the small kitchen, searching for anything alcoholic and settling for a beer. There was no reason for him to look into the cabinet —he had finished the last of the bourbon up the previous night, the last of the gin two nights before that. He was vaguely aware that his drinking was starting to get out of hand, but it did not concern him. He half-hoped that one of his superiors —either Alsirae or Odin Lowe, it didn't matter which one but preferably both —would contact him when he was drunk and he would tell them he wanted nothing more to do with either of their plans. That hope was probably futile these days, though, since Zechs seemed to be having a harder time in getting drunk. It was rare for him to get so much as a buzz anymore.

He was halfway through the beer when he heard a set of keys rattling outside the door and the solid _'click'_ of the right one being forced into the slot. On any other day he would have scrambled to conceal both the printouts he had received from Alsirae and the ones from Odin and to get rid of the beer. Not today. He wanted her to see them, wanted her to stop him from doing this. She could stop him if she really tried, if she put up as much of an argument as she had last night before Zechs had polished off the bourbon. If anything was left to stop him, it was she.

Lucrezia entered the apartment without speaking to him, eyes averted to the floor as though she was afraid of him. She had every right to be afraid, he knew, shamed by the fact. He had hurt her enough in the past even despite her obvious love for him. He had hurt her so much, not physically for he could never bring himself to that, but emotionally; it was no wonder to him at all that she should be afraid of him, in terror of which promise he would break next.

She finally glanced up and saw him watching her. "I have to leave tomorrow," she said quietly. "Une's given me a new mission."

He fought the urge to apologize to her again for all that he had done. If she were to stop him from going to Earth, he would have to put up the same strong front that had come so naturally to him last night. "Where are you going?" he asked, his voice not quite as rough and monotonous as he would have liked.

She took another step into the room. "The L3 colony. Sally and Wufei are going too. We're to meet with Trowa Barton once we land." She paused. "Une wanted you to go. I told her you couldn't."

He nodded.

She glanced over his shoulder, at the cluttered mess on the table. "You've been drinking again," she said flatly, gesturing toward the half-empty beer bottle. "You're going to kill yourself if you keep this up, Zechs. Maybe that's what you want."

He shrugged, pretending to be unaffected by the pained expression on her face. Indifference was both a weapon and defense he had mastered quite well over the years.

"I suppose you'll be leaving soon, won't you, Zechs?" she asked.

"Yes. The shuttle's on its way now."

She looked stung and for a moment she lowered her head, but she offered no argument. "Do you know when you'll be coming back?" Before he could answer her eyes flashed with an emotion he had never seen cross her face and, enraged, her voice choked with bitterness, she cried, "Or are you planning to die down there? Is that it? You're going to leave me here and go to Earth and get yourself killed in _whatever_ it is you're involved in! Zechs Marquise, the great Lightning Count, finally gets the honorable death that Treize Kushrenada tried to give you!"

He rose from the sofa. "I'm not going to die, Lucrezia." But he did not know that, did he? There was a strong possibility that he _would _die on Earth, especially if his association with Odin Lowe were ever discovered.

"You don't know that!" she yelled, walking toward him until she could look directly into his eyes. "You could die down there, just like I could die on one of these missions. But at least I'll know what I'm dying for, and that it's right. Zechs, in the end, what are you going to be dying for?"

He started to reply, could not. The only thing he could think of to say to her was that he was sorry, that he was wrong, that if she could still stand him he would accompany her again on this prevention mission, that if she could still stand him when they returned home he would stay with her.

"That's what I thought," she said when he failed to respond, her face streaked with tears now. Without warning her hand came up and she struck him. She was a strong woman but the punch was weak and ineffective because of how hard she was crying, perhaps also because it was he whom she was hitting.

Her eyes fell to the stack of papers on the table, those closest to her. She reached down and picked them up.

"Is this it?" she asked. "What you've been working on with those men all this time?"

He nodded. This was it. She would look through the reports, realize what was going on, and she would tell him he couldn't do this. She would beg him not to. And this time he would listen.

"No," she said, shaking her head and throwing the report back down. "I don't want to know. I don't care what it is." _No. _"Lucrezia–"

"Who are you?" she asked, sobbing.

"What do you mean, Lucrezia?"

"You heard me. Who are you? I can handle Zechs Marquise despite some of the things he believes in and I love him, and I can handle Milliardo Peacecraft despite some of the things he's done and I can even love him, but I don't think I can handle you."

"Lucrezia…" He placed a hand on her shoulder and she wrenched away from him.

"Don't touch me," she snapped.

He started to realize that maybe she had already resigned herself to the fact that he was leaving and was not going to try to stop him and that if this were true, he would not be able to find the strength to back out of Alsirae's bloodthirsty plot, Odin's sacrificial counteroffensive. "Lucrezia–"

"Don't," she said softly, and she offered him a tight smile. "I love you, Zechs. I love you even if I don't know how to live with what you are. But if this is how it's going to be, I can't do this anymore. I would rather end it all like this than fight with you. I'm not as strong as I used to be, or maybe I'm stronger, and that's why I can say this." She smiled again, but this time her lips trembled. "You're supposed to leave me. Do it if you must." She raised up and kissed him. "Goodbye, Zechs."

She started toward their bedroom. He realized what was happening, that she _was not _going to stop him after all, and he tried to protest but found that the words would not come. All he could do was watch her enter the next room and close the door behind her, and when the door closed he knew it was not only himself that she was shutting it on. It was everything the two of them had tried so hard to do together, everything they had worked to accomplish, and every one of the shattered promises he had made to her.

**VI**

She stayed in the bedroom until she heard him leave. Where he would go to wait for the shuttle's arrival she did not know, and she almost did not care, either. She had thought she was going to cry some more once out of his sight; in fact, she had gone to the room with every intention of bawling her eyes out. But she did not. A few more tears came, yes, but nothing more, and she was unsure of whether they were for herself or for him.

She went to the bureau while she waited for him to leave and dug under a pile of her shirts until she felt something cold and metallic under her fingertips. She withdrew the framed picture from the drawer and sat on the edge of the bed. The picture was one of several she had of him from their days at Lake Victoria, but it was the only one in which he was not wearing that accursed mask. She had taken it herself, knowing he would never remove the mask for any of those photographs the instructors took for the profiles. The two of them had been sitting on the short wall surrounding the platform outside the student dormitories, and he had had his arm around her. Her forehead and the tops of both eyes were visible in the corner of the picture. She had withdrawn the camera from her coat pocket and positioned it before he could protest, but the expression on his face was one she would always remember even without the photograph. His eyes were wide and alarmed, his platinum bangs had flown up when he raised his head and his entire forehead was exposed, and his mouth hung open in shock. He had been so startled when she raised the camera and so stunned by the flash that he had fallen off the wall and into the bushes beyond, knocking the mask off the wall with him. She had hoped it would break.

She laid the picture face-up across her legs, feeling a smile spread across her face, and absently, remembering those days, she traced the line of his face with her fingertip.

An hour after she had retreated to their bedroom Zechs knocked on the door. Lucrezia continued looking at the picture and pretended she did not hear him.

**Author's Notes: **I was very surprised that this chapter became so long, but I had to get so much of the exposition out of the way in it. At last I'm done with Noin for a while, and if anyone thinks she's being a bit moody (although she always did seem a little moody in the series, no?), you might be on the right track. With so much of the exposition done, the story really picks up in the next chapter.

Odin Lowe obviously does not look like he did in the Episode Zero manga. Why is this? I knew the backstory of Heero Yuy before I had ever acquired the manga from a quaint little Japanese bookshop in New York City, and had always envisioned him being very dark and brooding. I do explain the difference in his appearance later, but I do not remember if that explanation is somewhere in Ballad, or if it does not come until Remnants. As nothing is said about Odin's life in the manga, I have taken uncountable liberties with his character, and one chapter of Ballad (as well as several chapters of Remnants) go over the little story I concocted for him, detailing his connection to Heero Yuy.

Obviously, "Alsirae Trecais" is not the character's real name. Pat yourselves on the back if you've already figured who he really is; I think it's rather obvious, but I was determined to work him into this story.

I feel the need to make a note regarding the religious nature of certain parts of this chapter. Zechs's abstract near-death scene is meant to be rather psychedelic, if not vaguely classical. The memory he keeps alluding to is one of himself and Lucrezia when they were very young that I meant to turn into a small story, but I'm not sure if I'll ever finish it. Despite some of the things that are said in this chapter, I always had the feeling that Zechs was an atheist, or at least an agnostic. His scene with Odin is a reflection of what he was raised to believe before the Sanq Kingdom was destroyed, and what he still hopes for, despite everything that has happened in his life. Simultaneously, I think that Noin, as is obvious from this chapter, is a sometimes-practicing Roman Catholic. And if anyone really wants to know, Odin is something of a Taoist, with several Buddhist influences as well. All that will show up later, though. I'm horribly fascinated by all religions, so my characters' faiths are of great importance to me, even if they never matter in the actual story.


	4. Chapter Three

_Chapter Three_

**I**

Zechs boarded the shuttle silently and without incident, speaking neither to the pilot who greeted him nor to the subordinate who escorted him to his seat. They all seemed too cheery for him, too enthusiastic for men who had spent at least the past months of their lives preparing for a war that would only bring about the very same kind of tyranny most of them had fought against during Mariemaia Kushrenada's short-lived attempt at ascension to a nonexistent global throne. He knew that some members of Alsirae's nameless organization had fought with OZ or the Treize Faction and most of those had fought in the Eve Wars, but these soldiers were completely without any real combat experience, and this was why Alsirae had sent them specifically for this mission. Anyone who really knew what it was to be in a war would not have smiled so warmly upon meeting him; anyone who had experienced those moments of complete anarchy in the Eve Wars, when to destroy the enemy one had to kill half of his own unit, would not have seen him into the empty passenger compartment as though he were a messenger of God but simply as a superior officer who, in all honesty, they did not give a damn about.

However, he did not question the reason behind these fledgling soldiers' strange reverence of him. To them he was a war hero, the 'top soldier' OZ had made him out to be in every way. Their leader had sent them to bring him to Earth and —whether Alsirae had planted this idea in their heads or not— they believed he was going to win a war for them. None of them had to say it. They did not even have to be aware that they were thinking it. Zechs had been a new soldier once and he still remembered hearing those around him talking about the generals under whom they would fight. These people thought that he would be their army's great hero and that when the time to fight came, their sole responsibility would be to stand behind him as he magically vanquished all enemies who rose against them. How naïve they were. How very naïve, and how very wrong.

Did he feel sorry for them? Knowing that he would be one of the enemies they faced, should he not feel the slightest remorse for them? Perhaps he should, but somehow, he did not.

One of the soldiers entered the passenger compartment once the shuttle had taken off, holding a thin black box. As he neared the box proved to be a folded laptop computer.

"Former Colonel Zechs," he said with a thick British accent that was immediately identifiable as Liverpudlian, balancing the slender computer with one hand and saluting.

Zechs visibly cringed at the title. He looked up at the man and said calmly, "Soldier, my name is Zechs Marquise. You may address me by either or both of those, but after I say this, if you dare use a title in front of it I will put a bullet in your head for your stupidity."

The soldier blinked and stepped back.

Zechs raised an eyebrow and waited.

"Here," the younger man said finally, thrusting the computer forward. "Mr. Alsirae requested that you personally notify him when you're in the air."

Zechs nodded and took the computer out of the soldier's unsteady hands. "Thank you."

"Is there anything else we can do for you, F–…Mr. Marquise?"

"Yes."

"What might that be, sir?"

"You can leave me alone until we enter the Earth's atmosphere."

Again, blinking from his subordinate. "Very well, sir," he said curtly, then made as if to leave.

Zechs opened the laptop. As he waited for it to boot up, he made the mistake of pushing back a few strands of his hair, further exposing one side of his face.

The soldier uttered the start of a small gasp and caught himself. Zechs looked up at him and he averted his eyes to some other point in the room.

"Is something wrong?" Zechs asked as though he did not know what the young man had seen.

"No, sir," the soldier responded, then promptly pivoted on his heels and left the passenger compartment, firmly shutting the door behind him.

Zechs's hand went to his face. It was not sore exactly, but even at the lightest touch a burning ache flared within his jaw.

Had she hit him that hard? It had happened hours ago and still that side of his face was sensitive, yet when she had hit him he had barely even felt it. Had he even blinked when she had done it? Yes, of course, he had blinked, that was only natural human reflex, but other than that had he even moved?

She was strong; that had always been undeniable, strong even in her weakness, which he knew was none other than himself. Strong both physically and emotionally. Strong enough to wait all these years for him, to tell him that she loved him and at the same time deliver a punch that would, apparently, mark him.

He strangely found himself smiling, pressing his hand deeper into the firm flesh of his jaw. The pain deepened with his fingertips; it throbbed and pulsated and bloomed out across his entire head like a malignant living flower. He enjoyed this pain —he hissed once and inhaled sharply as the pain became dizzying— but still he was reveling in it. He deserved this pain and so much more, an infinite amount of pain for what he had done to her.

It was only now striking him, how he had given no argument to her this time, how she had begged him the night before not to leave and he had persisted. He had done nothing more than desert her after leading her to believe that he actually wanted this. And she believed him. She truly thought he had chosen something over his peaceful life on Mars —his life with her— and she had raged against it, then at the very moment he wanted her to rage, she, in her incessant love for him, had simply hit him and kissed him, then turned her back and waited for him to leave.

How many times had he done this in the past, had he left her like this? There were three times of which he was truly aware now, but occasions that went unspoken of often seemed to outnumber those deliberate ones. How many times had she watched him leave a base with OZ for a mission from which he probably would not return?

He could not even estimate the number of times he had done this, but —and this very thought shamed him— he was sure that if asked, Lucrezia could provide an exact amount.

Why did it seem, all throughout their years together, that he had done nothing but cause her even more pain? How could he hurt her so badly when all he wanted to do was protect her?

_Always betraying something. _

_Lucrezia,_ he thought, momentarily closing his eyes, _Luca, I'm so sorry. _

If he truly wanted to keep her safe, he had to go through with what he was involved in, which started with sending notification of the shuttle's takeoff to Alsirae.

Zechs was fully aware of the reason he had been ordered to notify his superior of every move he made. Even when he had first begun his military career, one of the first things a soldier was taught was that the best time for an enemy to take him out was during transportation of some kind, making him simply disappear rather than kill him officially in the field. This had hardly been knowledge restricted to the military; this was proven to an entirely new extent when the Gundam 05, piloted by L5's Chang Wufei, attacked the soldier barracks at Lake Victoria three years ago the night _before_ they were supposed to transport their own suits off base, in mockery of army notification regulations. Zechs, without every really having done anything for the organization, was nonetheless considered one of its top soldiers, and it was only natural that Alsirae should request notification that no incident whatsoever had occurred and that the shuttle was safely in outer space.

The consequences of ignorance of the request were dire enough to make Zechs not even briefly consider not following it just so Alsirae would sweat a little. If something were to happen to him or even be _suspected_ of happening, a crew of experienced soldiers would be sent to the Sanq Kingdom and Mars immediately, the former to take into custody Relena Peacecraft, the other to do so of Lucrezia Noin. This was to occur in the event that any attack on Zechs could involve similar attacks on those closest to him, and it was practically common knowledge that the closest to him were his sister and the woman he lived with.

However, this was not why Alsirae would order their immediate apprehension, despite whatever lie he fed his soldiers. He did not really care what happened to either Relena or Lucrezia, but he knew how very much Zechs _did _care, and the threat of their apprehension was his weapon to insure that Zechs followed his orders to the letter.

He quickly typed up the notification but did not immediately send it. From a concealed pocket inside his long black overcoat, the pocket beside the one that held his gun, he withdrew a disk, which he inserted into the computer. He sent the message to Alsirae, and the disk was promptly activated. The same moment Alsirae received the message it would be sent to Odin Lowe's computer, via the heavily encrypted rerouting program on the disk. Any outgoing material sent after the disk was placed in the computer would instantly be copied and the copy would be sent to the encrypted location. It was an untraceable effort; thanks to the wonders of modern technology, the program performed an instant 'clean-up' of itself, eradicating every trace of itself from the host computer. The program had been conceived and designed by one of Odin's other higher subordinates, one whose computer skills, Zechs knew for an absolute fact, were nothing less than astonishing.

He slipped the disk back into his pocket and set the computer aside. His head fell back against the seat and his eyes fell shut. Resting his elbows on either armrest, he clasped his hands over his abdomen. He was only sometimes aware that he did this, but often after remembering he immediately moved into some other position.

This was a posture he had often, in his youth, seen his father fall into when he was thinking heavily on something. He had never tried to emulate it; it was not until years after his father's assassination that he realized he himself often sat like this.

Leaving Lucrezia for the Earth. Leaving space for the Earth. Of that last one neither seemed much of importance; they were both all but falling apart right now, and had been for months.

The Earth had changed so much in the past fourteen months, since Dekim Barton's misguided soldiers were vanquished and Zechs and Lucrezia had gone to Mars. Space had changed, too, but not as much, and nowhere near as drastically. Governed by the restored autonomy of each colony, without the Earth's involvement, space could probably go years without a war. This was something Zechs had said to rally the troops of the White Fang once, and as much as it pained him to admit it, it was something he did believe, at least partly.

The nations of Earth had experienced complete governmental reforms after the great 'Mariemaia incident,' as it was called to now, and for the first few months of AC 197 the entire world had gone through a very subdued, very calm breed of chaos. The colonies had suffered for a while because of this as well, for they were, ultimately, reliant upon Earth's economic support. The Martian terraforming project, however, had managed to continue until it was inhabitable, and then was inexplicably financially forced to a screeching halt.

One of the reasons for such an extensive review of the effectiveness of all the current governments was the outrage that indeed another battle had taken place, and mainly, how easily Mariemaia had been able to gain power. Was it likely that another such takeover could occur? At the moment it had not been, perhaps because the people, still enraged and feeling empowered by their own role in overthrowing Mariemaia and Dekim, would simply have led a worldwide revolt. But later, in years to come, was it likely? Of course it was, for one of the primary things that history has taught human beings is that they are doomed to repeat themselves. And such a repetition was to be avoided at all costs.

It was globally decided that one of the factors leading to Mariemaia's hasty ascension to power was an imbalance of the powers to begin with. Had so much power not been given to the Vice Foreign Minister, the removal of Relena Darlian would not have facilitated such a quick takeover. Therefore, it was decided mutually —among the melange of national governments and the Vice Foreign Minister herself— that some power should be removed from the office and placed elsewhere. A surprising development occurred once this decision was made: although she had agreed with the necessity of a slight shift in certain areas of power, Relena Darlian had resigned from her position in all of Earth's government. She gave no explanation for it, nor any apology. Her sudden apathy was the only thing that had shocked Zechs about it, but he had made no attempt to question her personally about her motives, and likewise she had not tried to speak to him about it.

Shortly after Relena's resignation, Zechs, quite unwillingly, had made his first appearance in the news since the Eve Wars. Relena was suddenly out of every picture she could possibly be in, and the vultures of the press had suddenly decided to release the fact that Her Grace Relena's brother, Milliardo, had reportedly lived through the Eve Wars and had reemerged to fight Mariemaia's tyranny. The question that was supposedly on the mind of the people but was really only a concern of the news networks was where Milliardo was while Her Grace went through this 'crisis' (they apparently had forgotten that she had not been removed from power but had resigned). Many believed that the media's newfound concern over the disappearance of the prince was a desperate attempt to create some kind of mystery or intrigue surrounding Relena's resignation, because despite all their efforts, Relena had spoken not a word to them following her decision, and now she, like her brother before her, had vanished.

The governmental review conferences continued without Relena at the head table. The media was not allowed anywhere inside the building in which the conferences were held, but if it had been, even then it would have been believed that Relena was now exempting herself from all governmental affairs.

Relena _had _attended those conferences, however, not missing a single one, even during her resignation. Those who looked for her there expected to find her sitting near the front, where she would be closest to the great tables were the governing political leaders were. Because of this assumption, only one person, to Zechs's knowledge, had seen her there.

He was often darkly amused by comparisons between his two superiors. Alsirae's soldiers and subordinates were either inexperienced boys who were sore because they had never been given the chance to fight in a war or those who _had _been given that chance and were now so badly hardened that they no longer possessed souls and merely wanted to see how much damage they could do before their hearts' wish was granted and battle finally took with it their lives as it had their souls. Even living in anonymity, Alsirae carried the very aura of elegance, of eloquence, of grace and power and wealth. Odin Lowe seemed to many people upon their first meeting to be the chain-smoking, grinning devil incarnate, and his subordinates were in some way all contacts to something.

One such subordinate (Zechs did not know his name and probably never would) held some position of power and therefore was given a seat at one of the tables at the head of the grand auditorium, and once when he looked out into the crowd the dim lights in the back caught his eye in such a way that he noticed a strange shadow that fell between them. The balcony had been closed off for these conferences but that was where the shadow fell from, and when he looked up he was barely able to make out the shape of a person in the darkness of the upper level. At some point during the conference (Zechs had not been told when or how), this man realized that the person illegally watching from the balcony was none other than the self-exiled Relena Peacecraft.

Zechs had learned this from Odin, and afterward he had felt a strange sense of pride in his sister. Even now he did not know why these actions of hers made him proud, but nor did he want to know.

The conferences, which had previously relied somewhat on Relena for her bright optimism, her ideals, and simply because she inspired such strong emotions in anyone who had contact with her, went on, its attendees unaware of her observant presence in the balcony. Colonial leaders began to attend, ideas were proposed, agreements were reached, and at long last a stack of paperwork was brought out, ready to be signed. The conferences did take time and for a while the entire body of governments across the world were put on hold as much as possible, but every second of the time spent on the reforms was imperatively necessary. Such political meetings of the past, of even one year ago, had been tainted by the bullshit of nationalist greed or self-empowering propaganda; these had been desperate, so desperate that for once (and perhaps only this once), self had become a secondary priority, and all seemed willing to sacrifice to prevent another war. This century, more than any other in human history, had been filled with almost _nothing _except warfare; all had lost someone or something, all had been scarred in some way, and all knew this could not be allowed to go on.

So pure, it had all been. So pure and so clean and so blessedly and truly great.

Sometimes it took a war to unite the people, to cause them all, even if only for one day, to put away their petty differences and setbacks. Sometimes talk and negotiations were all that was necessary to focus the people on a common goal, but those times were rare and quite often short-lived.

Sometimes, it took a war.

He hoped Relena had learned now what he had been trying to do with White Fang. He hoped she knew and that she understood.

The colonies were turned to the autonomic control they had for so many years tried to gain. The Martian colony had been among these and he and Lucrezia had watched from the window of their apartment the mass celebrations that were, for once in the history of warfare, not over defeat of an opponent or a murder but rather were over the supposed end of tyranny and bloodshed. Each colony was given freedom to choose their leadership, a first in colonial history, and though financial backing from Earth was still needed, no country could again lay claim to a colony.

The nations of the Earth were given much of that same freedom. Most formerly democratic countries returned to democracy; most former monarchies returned to monarchy. There were a few nations that had previously been governed democratically who embraced the concept of monarchy and bestowed that title upon their leader, and a handful of smaller monarchies fell to democracy. There was even talk of certain territories that had readopted lifestyles similar to the fiefdoms of the Medieval Age.

There was one major change in the governments of the Earth, however, decided upon by the governmental leaders in further hope of preventing another Mariemaia (_another Milliardo Peacecraft_) from coming into power. Regardless of differences in governmental systems, all nations were to receive final say on all new laws from a supreme governing High Council, which was set after brief discussion in Luxembourg. Twenty leaders were to be chosen to be the highest members of the Council, as well as an additional twenty as secondary members who held equal but less prominent power. The main purpose of the Council was to insure there could be no more tyrannical exploits such as the Alliance had tried to impose, and it soon became something like another branch of the Prevention Organization. All civil disputes and such dilemmas were to be taken before the Council if a solution could not be reached within the country and there was a possibility of combat; therefore, where the Prevention Organization worked to investigate evidence of possible conflicts and to do everything within its power to put a stop to any situation that could escalate into a war, the Council tried to settle affairs before they could get even that far.

The most recent governmental change —which had come shortly after the establishment of the Council, a few months short of a year ago— had occurred in the Sanq Kingdom. The throne of Sanq had remained empty since the heinous assassination of the Peacecrafts, the country run by whichever merciless military organization was in control at the time (how ironic, Zechs had often thought, that the great pacifist nation should be under military control), and had seemed destined to fall even lower into decadence even in this time of peace and prosperity until one of the former 'children of Sanq' returned from God-only-knew-where and laid claim to the throne.

Relena Peacecraft was crowned Queen of Sanq in the early spring of AC 197. The people accepted her without hesitation, and instantly the new Queen created plans to restore the war-torn country to its former glory.

Zechs had not spoken to his sister since his exodus to Mars, but he did not need to have to know that after the ordeal with Mariemaia she had changed drastically. It was obvious in everything she said or did, in the manner in which she performed her duties. Something in the past fourteen months had brought about in her an emotional maturity that Zechs had previously feared she would never acquire, and whatever it was, it had hardened her. Not so much that the press or the subjects of her newly gained kingdom would notice; it was something of which only those who had in the past been closest to her would be aware.

Zechs wondered if Heero Yuy had noticed the abrupt metamorphosis in her. He would probably never receive an answer to this question, however, for although he now knew where the former Gundam pilot was, there was very little chance that their paths would ever cross again. After all, were they not destined to be a hindrance to one another?

Relena's reign had begun well. Sanq, which had suffered in every way since its great fall, suddenly held promise for the future. All remaining symbols of warfare were destroyed as vehemently as were the pagan groves in the early days of Christianity. The economy again flourished and as trade and commerce became integrated with the native economics, a true culture began to develop.

The entire world had seemed, for the most part, at peace and finally reaping the rewards of its labors.

The welfare of the colonies, however, was a different story.

The Martian colony had, in the beginning, remained relatively untouched by the crisis that claimed many of the others in space, mostly because it had still retained some of the money gained from the government funding it had received before all construction had ceased. But when the money ran out they had been in the same situation as all the rest, inching closer to being on the verge of starvation and waiting for the Earth to intervene. Some of the colonists had gone to Earth and Une had sent the pacified Mariemaia to a private school in France, and Zechs had even once suggested to Lucrezia that they join those who had left, but she had refused, condemning departure as cowardice. This was true and he had never thought otherwise, but sometimes cowardice was the only remaining option.

The major factor in the economic collapse of the colonies was the sudden lack of money. The colonies had always needed Earth as their supplier of goods and money, and though autonomic control was highly successful in each one, without someone on Earth to act as a benefactor, the colonies would perish.

This matter was brought before all nations of the Earth and all were concerned, but no one wanted to step up as a responsible party. The new systems of government were efficient but none had the money to spare for the colonies, and another great concern was whether or not some colonial control would be granted to the nation paying to preserve lives in space.

The arguments spawned over the dilemma in space were settled when, after receiving permission and favor from the Council, Queen Relena of the Sanq Kingdom accepted the full duties of the colonial benefactor. Her kingdom was not the wealthiest in the world, having just recovered from a fifteen-year depression, but the Queen's actions were not questioned.

All had gone well for a while.

But it seemed that a good thing never lasted, and perhaps utopia did not really exist. The funding for the colonies had soon become lacking, for Queen Relena refused to raise taxes to support them. The colonies were not truly suffering yet and if there were a development in the near future they might never be, but the changes the sudden scarceness of money caused were evident.

The biggest changes, however, were in the Queen herself. The press did not speak of these things but that did little to prevent word of the Queen's strange behavior from reaching Zechs.

She was hardly the confident, happy young girl she had been when he left her. They said she spent much of her time alone now, hidden away in either her chambers or the library in the palace, sometimes in her vast gardens. Nothing seemed to hold her interest anymore; even discussions on the successes of her various treaties became lost on her, and when told about them, eventually her eyes glazed over and wandered to something only she could see. She rarely appeared before her subjects and though she remained warm to her servants, it was apparent that her warmth did not come without some effort. She refused to talk to anyone about what disturbed her so and fell into a profound silence whenever asked.

He wondered if she would maintain that silence with him.

"My dear Relena," he whispered aloud in the empty compartment, "will you have me back into your life?"

Not much time remained until he would receive an answer to his question. He would not go to Sanq immediately once he reached Earth. First he would be taken to Thessaloníki, where Alsirae waited for him. This meeting should not require much time, however, for the same reason that Alsirae was coming to Thessaloníki and leaving the base in Germany, where most of his organizations' actions occurred. He knew, as well as Odin Lowe did, that Zechs was going to Sanq, to Relena, and that personal matters were allowed precedence over any militaristic affairs of the moment. After all, was Sanq not one of the nations Alsirae intended to seize power over?

He finished the message to Alsirae and turned off the computer, setting it in the seat beside him. His thoughts threatened to turn to Lucrezia, then to Relena, and then at last he was able to clear his mind completely.

**II**

Dawn over Earth was much different than dawn over the distant planet Mars. He did not know this from experience but he had been told, and without ever having seen the sun rise over the horizon of the red planet, he knew it to be true. As the sun rose over the Earth, its light eventually caught all the signs man had put up of his own existence, the buildings that rose to touch the sky, the snaking roadways that cut through the true Earth, but on Mars it rose on nothing, nothing save for the translucent dome that guarded the one single colony. Beyond the incomplete colony, there was emptiness. A pure, dark emptiness that contained nothing of civilization, no thought or sound of war or pain. Nothing but a red sea that had yet to be parted by any man on a sacred mission from God.

He had been on Earth ever since that final battle with Mariemaia's soldiers. All the others had long since returned to the colonies they had once offered their lives to protect. The only one of whom he had heard any news was Quatre, and that had been around six months ago. But everyone, both on Earth and in the colonies, knew what had happened to Quatre; therefore his knowledge of the former Gundam pilot was no credit to his ability of attaining certain information.

After the wars Quatre had returned to what remained of his home colony, and there was legally named the sole heir to the Winner family's vast estate. To the surprise of the public —but none at all to those who really knew him— Quatre had soon restored his family's enterprises and hence restored their wealth, and he had reestablished the Winner name as one of prominence and dignity within the world of business and economics.

He supposed he had been glad that his former ally had, even if temporarily, found a niche in life outside of warfare. He personally would rather swallow a bullet than conform to such a life.

A few months following Quatre's ascension into wealth, he had been scheduled to meet with a group of other financial leaders on Earth to discuss something that sounded good but probably did not mean a thing, like so many such conferences did. Half an hour into its flight, his shuttle put out a distress call. A medical team was sent from his colony to the shuttle's location, only to find the shuttle half-engulfed in flames.

The cause of the explosion remained to this day unknown. There was much speculation regarding it —some believed it had been some kind of mechanical failure, others said it was an all-out terrorist attack— but he did not listen to any of it. Any events that may have led up to the explosion were only secondary to the real meaning behind it, and that was simply that bad things happened to good people.

Several people —mostly members of the Maganac Corps— had been rescued from the blaze but many others had perished. Quatre had always been surrounded by people and because of that a good deal of his non-Maganac servants had died.

Quatre himself had lived, however, if the state in which he was left could be called 'living.' He had suffered tremendous injury in the explosion and had lain comatose in a hospital in Morocco almost ever since his useless body had been taken to Earth.

_Bad things happen to good people. _This was something he had learned several times in his life, and had first heard it from a man who had once made a living off of ensuring that such things happened. Did that mean Quatre deserved what had happened to him? Perhaps it did. Quatre was, after all, the closest thing to a good person he had ever known. Maybe this was a testament to his goodness.

Of the others, he had heard nothing. Duo had made an attempt to contact them all in light of what happened to Quatre, but to his knowledge no one had been located.

He started down the path, shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. The sun did not yet touch this corner of the Earth (though it soon would) and in the sky he could still see the faint crimson glimmer of Mars, the empty, dry sea that was the color of blood. The planet had often called him and many times he had come close to heeding that call. There was no one to miss him here on Earth. There were a select few who would be aware of his disappearance, but he doubted any of them would try to stop him from leaving. And no one would recognize him up there. The entire colony served as the chief residence of the Prevention Organization and the majority of its inhabitants were members of the organization. There were a few civilians, of course, and if he were to go there he would be seen simply as another one of them. He could go to Mars and live on the very edge of the colony, where the sun would rise on nothing. Nothing but the blessed emptiness.

He wanted to see that emptiness, where man could not go, where war could not touch and peace could not be claimed. An emptiness where the only sound could be the silent voice of God if indeed He existed, and if He did not, then silence.

He wanted nothing but that emptiness. He wanted to see it, to feel it, to be consumed by it, to surrender his very soul to it until he became a part of it himself. He wanted to _be_ it.

The Earth had been empty once, he thought as he walked toward the docks. There had been a beginning somewhere —he personally had never thought about the _when _or the _how _or the _why_ of it all— and before that there had been emptiness. Something had come from that great nothing and there had been Earth and eventually man. And man had had dominance over all the Earth in all its glorious emptiness. And what had he done? Ever since he had first possessed knowledge, man had made a continuous habit of screwing himself over. And for what? For what reasons had man relinquished all the emptiness he could have had? To etch his name upon the very dust of the Earth, to leave monuments to himself and become higher than his brothers. To claim pieces of the Earth for himself and to kill anyone who dared walk on it.

There was none of this in emptiness. There was nor war, no chaos, yet neither was there peace or stability. There was numbness and there was nothing, and then there was nothing beyond that.

He would not go to the Martian colony, however. He knew that, and knowing neither disturbed nor enlightened him. He felt nothing about it.

What did he feel about anything? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even the emptiness.

The light of Mars in all its emptiness had faded by the time he reached the piers. The sun had risen, making visible all the signs of civilization recent man had erected. He saw no use in these cities, these great shadows of fallen empires. He never had. Buildings crumbled, paths grew over, history and all the names became lost and forgotten, and in the end what did it all matter?

_That they for that one moment existed._ He had heard this from the closest thing to a father he had ever known, the mentor who had come before Dr. J. This was the same man who had told him that the only way to live was by one's own emotions, and Heero disregarded both of these philosophies. Did it matter that such things existed? No, not when they could be destroyed so easily. He, perhaps more than any of the other Gundam pilots, had killed so many in the past, both those he was assigned to kill and all the innocents who had been in the vicinity as well. Sometimes he had killed simply because he felt like it.

And did he feel anything for them now, all those whose lives he had taken away? No. Yes. He did not know. He felt nothing. But there had been one who had mattered, hadn't there? One who, despite all his efforts not to, he still thought of, one whose face he saw and whose voice he heard every time he slept.

_Are you lost? _

The little girl, the child with the bright red hair and the puppy she had called Mary. How could he even for one moment forget her? The little girl who had given him the flower. What had he done with that flower? He remembered the feel of it in his hand as he walked along some ruined, ash-covered street, remembered crushing it beneath his fingers as he felt something hot and acidic rolling down his face, something with the unmistakable taste of salt. And the puppy, Mary, he remembered feeling the weight of her small, dead body in his arms, but what had he done with her? Why couldn't he remember!

And why the hell did it even matter?

_But he could not remember. _

He at last came to the piers. The shore was empty this morning, devoid of the usual workers and fishermen who made a living from its waters, blessedly empty. The sea was calm and dark but it would not be for long, it seemed, for overhead the clouds were gathering, and far in the distance could be heard the low rumbling of thunder.

He watched for a brief moment, calmly breathing in the salted sea air that was, this morning, also scented with ozone, another sign that a storm would soon arrive on the waves.

The piers that lined this beach were not privately owned and therefore sometimes cluttered with boats while other times without any sign of life at all. This strip had once, years ago, before OZ had begun its seizure of factories and warehouses for the production of mobile suits, been a business district, smothered by fishing and boating enterprises. It was slowly becoming that again but this morning it was desolate; gray and dirty and the very epitome of an area formerly controlled by a militaristic organization.

Heero proceeded to the large warehouses about thirty yards from where he had entered the beach. There were no signs of life anywhere near the facility, other than the enthusiastic seabirds, and the air around it was still and silent, but he knew it was bustling inside.

Before seizure by OZ, this building had once served as a development center for various kinds of automotive engines. It had, within the past three years, returned to that purpose, only now to a much greater extent. A good portion of those who worked there believed that they did indeed build engines and on occasion modify them, and in truth this _was_ what they were doing, but they were misled in regard to what purpose these engines served. The current project was said to be the mass production of a highly advanced engine for a new kind of commercial jet. The workers were even shown images of the craft they were helping to create, and as yet none of them had ever bothered to question why they were never shown a true model of the jet. The lack of interaction with an actual machine was simple to explain: the jet did not exist. Those who had been recruited to build these engines had been chosen not only because of their knowledge of motive craft but also for their _lack_ of knowledge of mobile suits, meaning they had no idea what they were building. The engines were a bit different than those of an aircraft but those differences had been explained, and despite the vast areas of the warehouse that were sealed off to them, it seemed that no suspicions were raised. There were only a few slight modifications that needed to be made once the basic engine was built before they could be completed, and the unaware designers were kept oblivious to this fact as well. Such modifications were left in the hands of the resident members of the counteroffensive.

Heero entered the building by way of a side door that opened into one of the many restricted areas. In other sections of the building the halls echoed with the sounds of metal clashing against metal, of whining drills and the low hum of the worker's conversations; here it was silent. The only lights were those coming from within the few rooms with open doors, and for the most part the corridors were dark and empty.

Without a pause he went to the first open room to his left. This room seemed to be empty as well, thought sometimes it could be found occupied by two or three members of the counteroffensive who had decided to impose a break on themselves, and he proceeded to the other side of the room, and from there through the opposite door. Beyond this threshold was another desolate corridor, which he entered after undergoing a computerized scan of his fingerprints.

There were no lighted rooms on this locked-off hallway. A dim overhead lamp shone every few yards or so, and by this light he found his way to the first room at the end of the corridor. There was another machine outside this door and he pressed his hand flat against it, waited until the lights on the screen faded and he heard the 'click' of the door being unlocked.

The door opened into a small office, dimly but still warmly lit, larger than what would have been expected yet at the same time remaining small. On one wall hung a great tapestry; on the other, an entire series of computers and screens. Faint music could be heard in the background, some mournful violin piece by Bach, it seemed.

The man who owned this office sat in a high-backed French chair at the center of the room. His head was up, his eyes were closed, and one thin hand lay flat atop each level knee. He was much older than Heero, this man, older even than the man who had collaborated to form the counteroffensive, and at first glance obviously of Chinese descent.

"Good morning, Takeru," the man said, his voice as calm and passive as it always was. To Heero's knowledge the man had never even batted an eyelash to see who had entered.

Heero waited, maintaining his silence.

Xing Yuan-Chen smiled at his silence. "The one and only, descended from the blossom."

He stifled any visible sign of disturbance. There were only two people other then Heero himself who knew what this meant, and at times they seemed to take some perverse enjoyment from reminding him of such things.

Yuan-Chen finally opened his eyes. "Never much for conversation, are you, Takeru?" He smiled again, warmly. There was never any malice in his smile, and there seemed to be none in his mind as well. He had always seemed an unlikely candidate for a secondary leader of a militaristic organization.

"I will notify the guard," he said when Heero withheld his voice. Yuan-Chen rose from the chair and went to an antique phone on the wall, a lone relic amidst a tower of monitors. He spoke briefly with the guard on the second subterranean floor, then turned and gave Heero another generous smile.

Heero nodded solemnly and left.

Back into the corridors, back into the darkness that was every so often pierced by an overhead lamp, back into the silence. There was nothing to be said or to be thought about these halls. They were all the same, each one almost exactly like the one before it.

At last he came to an elevator. He descended two floors beneath the earth, and from there he walked down another hall and a short flight of stairs. His eyes lingered briefly on the great black glass window that served as the top half of one of the floor's largest rooms. All was dark beyond the glass but he knew the guard was watching him. The entire section of the building he had gone through before coming to the elevator was heavily locked, but not as guarded as these subterranean rooms. The locks to the elevators were both computerized and manual and could not be disengaged unless one had either the correct code or a key. And there were only three people who had the keys and codes, and these three were also the only ones who could access the subterranean floors without first notifying the guard: the leader of the counteroffensive, Yuan-Chen, and Heero himself. Yuan-Chen had merely unlocked the elevator and notified the guard to save Heero a bit of time.

The short, wide stairwell led to an enormous storage room. It was almost completely empty now, but at the end of the day it would faintly echo with the beginnings of sparse greetings and conversations as the first groups of people were let in to continue their work for the counteroffensive. The prohibited areas of the facility were quite often empty until nightfall.

In the corner of the room, merely a towering outline of a figure in the shadows, stood the product of those men's labors, the prototype of the MS Sagittarius. The name had pried the vague start of a smirk from him when he had first read it in Odin's message. Such ridiculousness could be nothing less than expected from this kind of endeavor.

He passed the useless mobile suit without a further glance, heading for an isolated room at the end of the floor. He was given access immediately by the computerized locking system. This was, after all, the room the others all thought of as his.

The room was dark and cold and almost completely empty, devoid of any of the material or spiritual comforts of Yuan-Chen's office. In the corner of the western wall stood a slim table, atop which sat a simple computer. The chair in front of the table was the only other furnishing.

It was to the table that he went. He sat and waited for the computer to boot up, and he seemed completely oblivious to the series of disks strewn about around the monitor. These disks were, at the moment, perhaps the most vital thing to the counteroffensive.

There was a message waiting for him from Odin. The sender was not listed as such but he knew what it regarded.

The message was coded, for recent security reasons, as a weather forecast. He skimmed through the beginning of it, looking for anything else that might be of some importance, then returned to the end.

_Severe lightning expected in the northeast, possibly moving in by tomorrow evening. _

He stared at this line thoughtfully. There was only one thing this could possibly mean.

Odin had never said in so many words that Zechs Marquise was indeed working for the counteroffensive, but Heero had gathered such information from the more cryptic things Odin _had _said in regard to his third high subordinate. If one were to read this message and, having knowledge of OZ's former top soldier or at least a suspicion that he was involved with the underground workings of Odin's network, analyze that final sentence, they would undoubtedly realize that it was a roundabout notification that the infamous Lightning Count was on his way to Earth, first to meet with the enemy he was betraying in the east, then later to come to Odin, outside of the Sanq Kingdom.

"It's been a long time, Zechs," Heero said softly, and with thoughts of what the sudden necessity for Zechs to come to Earth meant calmly tormenting his mind, he switched off the computer and sat back in the cold emptiness of the room. The cold, blessed, damnable emptiness.

**Author's Notes: **Two original characters are introduced in this chapter. Remember the Liverpudlian soldier: he becomes something of an important character. Thus far people seem to like him; I certainly had fun writing his character, especially when imagining his voice . . . Liverpudlian accents are so wonderful. I wanted Zechs to be a bit testier in this chapter, and I also wanted to emphasize his hatred of his former identities. Zechs really doesn't like himself, I think, whether he is Milliardo Peacecraft, Zechs Marquise, or even Preventer Wind. Maybe that's why he was my favorite character in the series; he's intensely brutal on himself, and I think that he possesses a certain nobility for that. Yuan-Chen appears frequently in Ballad and in Remnants. I've always rather liked his character; he's a very classical guy.

I'm sure it's quite obvious by now that I do not like Relena. When I was first introduced to Gundam Wing, by my good friend and roommate, known on as Ceremonial Blood, I watched an episode in which Relena does something stupid every seventy-five seconds, and I must say that she left a rather bad impression on me. When I watched the entire series, my disdain for her character only worsened. I think she had some noble intentions, but ultimately, I think she is a selfish, opportunistic brat.

Heero makes his entrance in this chapter. Poor Heero . . . such a miserable little guy. Heero appeals to me for all the same reasons as Zechs does, and I will warn you that I am much harder on Heero later in this story than I am on Zechs. I went into my own perception of his character quite a bit in this chapter. There seem to be two camps when it comes to Heero: those who think he feels nothing, and those who think he feels _everything_. I rather straddle the fence on that issue. I think that he is a young man who has undergone such trauma in his short life, and who has been trained to feel nothing, to such a point that his natural emotions often conflict with his stoicism. I think he _wants_ to feel nothing; he wants to be numb, and because he is human, he cannot be. I torture him quite a bit in later chapters, and in Remnants, I rather put him through hell, but his character is so interesting that I couldn't resist! Some of you might already understand what the whole "one and only" and "blossom" thing is about.

There is much more action in the next chapter, and Alsirae's identity is revealed.


	5. Chapter Four

_Chapter Four_

**I**

The shuttle docked later than expected. Zechs had not been aware of the extension in the flight, and in spite of himself he was silently amused by the soldiers' concern that he would be angry with them.

"The delay could not be prevented," one of them, the same one who had brought him the computer earlier, said as he left the passenger compartment.

"I understand," Zechs replied. These two words were fast becoming a mantra; he had long ago lost count of how many times he had repeated them in response to an apology from the shuttle's crew.

Zechs didn't wait for the steel staircase to be joined with the shuttle's exit. He shrugged past two arguing soldiers and leapt through the open door onto the ground several feet below, his long hair flying out behind him like the single wing of an angel. His hair glowed white under the fierce sunlight, and out of the corner of his eye he noticed some of the others —most or perhaps even all of whom had never seen him before— staring at it, each with a different expression upon his face.

Two officers ran out of a small building at the center of the landing platform, stopping five feet short of him and saluting.

He stifled his disgust and waited, hoping they would not give him the same address those on the shuttle had.

"Former Colonel Zechs," the first one said when Zechs did not return the salute. "We would like to extend our humblest apologies for the delay in your flight. We were told there was some kind of complication in the matter of refueling."

"As was I."

"If you have no further complaints, we will escort you to Mr. Alsirae now."

He nodded. "By all means."

They started toward the building from which the two soldiers had come. The crew from the shuttle followed, leaving only two of their number behind to move the craft to wherever it was stored when not in use.

"This way, sir," one of the soldiers said once they were all crammed inside the small lobby, and stepped forward to lead him down a staircase at the far side of the room. "As a precautionary measure," he explained needlessly, "we keep everything down here."

Zechs nodded, trying to look interested. He doubted his efforts were effective.

The staircase ended in a massive storage facility, apparently used as a garage for Alsirae's soldiers' business and possibility private use. Automobiles of all models and sizes lined the walls and were parked in rows running almost the full length of the place, all glowing phosphorescently under the stark white of the overhead lights. Zechs wondered vaguely how much of this had been acquired legally.

Behind them, the shuttle crew filed down one of the center aisles as Zechs was motioned to get into the back of a black limousine. Taking one final glance at the subterranean facility, he noticed the British soldier watching him, a strange smile upon his face. Under other circumstances, the smile would have been nothing less than unnerving.

The apparent commander of the group received a call from Alsirae en route to Thessaloníki. The call was dispatched from one of the men at the front of the car to the commander, who answered it with an exuberance Zechs found nothing less than disgusting.

"Yes, sir, we've just left Nigríta with the former colonel," the commander proclaimed loudly into the phone, casting a sideward glance at Zechs. "Yes, the shuttle is being taken care of as we speak."

He talked on for a few minutes of nothing, smiling brightly. His eyes, perhaps unconsciously, became fixed on a point on Zechs's forehead, and Zechs found himself wishing, not for the first time in these past two years, that he still wore a mask

_Lucrezia always hated that mask_, he thought, fighting off the endearing smile that threatened to cross his face every time he remembered this. Even before she had known whom he was underneath it, the fallen prince to whom it seemed she had had a connection even before the fall of Sanq, she had hated that cold, silver prison that hid his face. She had tried so many times at Lake Victoria to coax him out of it, and once he finally did leave its comforting shell she had insisted that he take it off every time they were alone together. Once —years ago now, but it still seemed like yesterday to him— the two of them had gone to Lucrezia's native barony in Italy (_the glimmer of silver in the candlelight click click of the beads my prince please_), and the first thing he had done upon reaching the shore was to discard his mask and everything else he could have used to conceal his face, as Lucrezia laughed and cursed the thing in an Italian dialect he had no hope of understanding.

Why had she hated it so? It was not because of her feelings for her him —not entirely, at least— nor was it because she saw his mask, as Relena did, as denial of who he really was, his identity beyond that of a soldier. He had asked her once the reason for her disgust with it. She had thought in silence for so long that he hadn't believed she would answer, but then she had looked at him and said, in perfect conviction, "Because it's a symbol of war and what it does to people. If it weren't for war, would you be wearing that wretched thing? No, you would still be a prince, a king in training, and an advocate of total pacifism."

"And where would you be, Luca?"

She had raised up then, her eyes two amethysts in the moonlight, and kissed him. "I would still be with you."

This was true, though there were only a select few people who knew it or how it would have come to pass that, even had the assassinations of the Alliance's political opponents occurred, they would still have been together.

But would they still have been ripped apart as well? Perhaps not; it seemed that every time they had been separated it had been for some accursed battle. Even now, war was the cause of his desertion of her. Once again, it seemed, the prince was leaving the fair maiden for a war, not atop a white stallion and dressed in armor that would make him impenetrable to an enemy's blade but rather dressed in the black he had become fond of over the course of his dealings with the counteroffensive and riding in a limousine of the same color, surrounded by enemies who thought themselves allies. Were any of them suspicious of him? The shuttle crew had been too aloof to be able to conceal any apprehension, but these men certainly seemed capable of disguising their true intentions. The one on the phone with Alsirae, the smiling one, was he watching Zechs and waiting for him to make some false move? Were they all? And if so, which one of them carried the phone that had direct access to the two teams that were to be dispatched, at a moment's notice, to apprehend Lucrezia and Queen Relena of the Sanq Kingdom? Or did Alsirae give him more credit than that?

"What have I done, Luca?" he whispered, too quietly to be heard.

"Mr. Marquise," the commander called out, bringing Zechs's attention back to him. "Mr. Alsirae would like to know if a" —he waited for the name to be repeated— "if a Miss Noin will be joining you."

He flashed the commander an unguarded expression of astonishment. _Foolish_. They would know now that he had been thinking of her.

"No," he said, regaining his composure. "No, she will not. Why does he ask?"

The commander relayed the question to Alsirae and listened for an answer. "He says he was going to ask you to send his greetings to her, if she was going to be joining you."

"I see." He sat back, clasped his hands over his knees.

"He wants to know if you will be needing transportation to Newport."

Zechs nodded.

"He asks whether you prefer a plane or a boat."

Zechs stifled a groan at the ridiculousness of this relayed conversation. _If Alsirae had so many questions for him, why didn't they just give him the damned phone_? "Whichever is more convenient for him," he replied.

The commander said nothing more to him. His conversation with Alsirae ended a few minutes later, and again the car fell silent. One of the other officers tried to make conversation with Zechs, asking him a short-lived series of idiotic questions, but he gave up once they were halfway to Thessaloníki, finally sensing that Zechs couldn't care less what he said.

The small convoy reached the base in Thessaloníki in less time than had been expected. Both the limousine and the van carrying the shuttle crew were waved toward the back of a large stone building —which Zechs had caught only a glimpse of over the officers' heads— and the passengers of both were escorted out of their cars by a pair of men dressed in blue uniforms vaguely resembling those of Sanq's Imperial Guard.

This building was not a base by true descriptive definition of the word, Zechs saw once he stepped out of the limousine, not a base but rather a palace that been converted to one. It rose somewhere between three to five stories high —the variations of long picture windows and smaller ones made it impossible to tell exactly— and built of tightly-placed amber-colored stones, much like the Imperial Palace of Sanq. The architecture was undeniably modern but with obvious influences of the ancient Greek and Florentine cultures, making it appear truly timeless.

Was it any wonder that Alsirae should spend so much time here, returning only to his cold, gray chateau in Germany when absolutely necessary?

A third uniformed guard appeared at his side. "Former Colonel Zechs?" she said, looking up at him and smiling. She was younger than he but not by too much, he saw as he turned to her, and though she was rather pretty at first glance, further examination revealed that she was possessed of some almost ancient androgyny that would have made her exceptionally beautiful in something other than this militaristically graceful uniform, something out of the Victorian period, perhaps. Her eyes were bright and somewhat mischievous; her lips were shapely and eternally turned in a faint smile that appeared almost smug as she looked at him. Her face was rather feline for all its androgyny, and something about her faintly brought to his mind an image of Dorothy Catalonia as she had been on Libra, cold, aching for the sight of human blood. Her auburn hair was long and pulled back, tied at the nape of her neck with a black ribbon in the manner of a boy.

"Yes?"

"Mr. Alsirae has asked me to bring you directly to him."

Zechs nodded and followed after her around the side of the palace and through the front entrance. His head turned from side to side, from the high arched ceiling to the sparkling marble floors, and his eyes all but danced in their sockets as he tried to look upon every object of every room they passed. How could his escort simply walk through all this as though each room was nothing but an unfurnished monk's cell, dull and empty? How could anyone?

He had heard that Relena had restored the Imperial Palace beyond what it had been during their parents' reign; did she now walk through its halls as this girl did, without so much as glancing around her? Or, despite all that had changed about her, did she still hold some sense of wonder?

The guard led him past the gold plated elevator, opting instead for the wide spiral staircase. A soft blood-red runner fell down the center of the stairs, winding upward like a crimson serpent, or (and perhaps this description was more appropriate) a thin trickle of blood down the white flesh of a woman's throat. He wondered if this was the effect Alsirae had intended.

Up the wide, white marble stairs, one flight after another. He wanted to tell the guard to stop so he could go into just one of the grand rooms they passed, and silently he berated himself for his childishness.

On the fourth floor, the guard forsook the staircase and proceeded down the corridor. Many of the doors on this floor were closed, to his dismay, but his eyes soon found a picture window that provided a view of the courtyard.

The knowledge that much of this estate and the possessions therein had probably not been acquired by legal means did not make it any less stunning.

"Right this way, Sir," the guard said once they were near the end of the corridor. She rapped her knuckles against a wide set of French doors. There was a momentary buzzing as the locks were disengaged.

She opened the doors and ushered him inside the massive room.

The chamber was indeed grand, nothing less but perhaps more than what the wealthiest monarch saw in his most lustful dreams. The floor was wide and smooth as glass, the color of the very palest faded rose, the walls were dark, mahogany perhaps, and the decorum was nothing if not spectacular. The wall to Zechs's left as he entered was almost entirely covered over by tapestries, one French, one Italian, one Chinese and another from Alsirae's native Germany. The wall opposite it was simpler, boasting two large portraits and a marble fireplace between them. Pictures hung where there were no tapestries or windows, paintings of Greek deities and Christian saints, of royal palaces from ages long past, of half-naked Grecian women and their half-robed male companions. There was one painting of a young woman with long brown hair put up into knots at the sides of her head, holding within her tenderly feminine hand a single red rose. Upon closer inspection Zechs saw the tear that rolled from the corner of one of her brown eyes, the small tear the same color as the rose.

He suspected this painting in particular held sentimental value for Alsirae.

Alsirae stood directly across from the doorway, his back turned as he watched through the great window the edge of the grounds and the faint hint of the city that could be seen from here. He was tall (even more so than Zechs), an impressive figure of a man, undeniably handsome, and visibly regal in every expression or movement.

The guard bowed although Alsirae could not see her. "Sir," she called, her voice echoing quietly up within the high ceiling that was buttressed rather than arched. "Former Colonel Zechs is here."

He turned slowly to face them, a tight smile that made him appear almost youthful upon his face. His eyes went directly to Zechs's.

"Is there anything else I can do for you, Sir?" the guard asked.

"No, my dear, I believe this is enough." He never took his eyes from Zechs as he spoke.

"Very well then." The guard pivoted on her heels and left the room, closing the massive door behind her. They stared at each other in silence, and if someone else were to see this they could not have been sure whether the two men —both of whom were supposed to be dead— were friends or foes.

"Zechs Marquise," Alsirae said finally, smiling even wider as the name left his lips. He walked swiftly across the room with a feline grace that even a prince could not match. "Welcome to Earth." He took Zechs's hand warmly and in the manner of a true European gentleman, he kissed his cheek. "I suppose I should also welcome you back to Greece as well, shouldn't I? Tell me, Prince, have you missed your homeland? I would imagine that Mars is nothing like the Grecian peninsula."

"Nothing like it at all," Zechs agreed quietly, monotonously.

Alsirae led him to a high-backed chair before an impressive desk and took a seat across from him. "How was your flight to Earth?"

"Good." Even when they had truly been good friends, Zechs had always held up the lacking end of the conversation. "And the ride to Thessaloníki?"

"Not as quiet."

Alsirae laughed softly. "And your short tour of the palace —did you enjoy it? Did Aphrodite show you the chapel? I believe as a child of the aesthetic Sanq Kingdom if not a terribly religious man, you would find it truly remarkable."

Zechs simply stared at him, waiting for clarification.

"Aphrodite, by the way," Alsirae said, realizing his mistake, "was the young lady who escorted you here."

"Then no, she didn't show me anything."

"It's not the most terribly suiting name for her, is it?" Alsirae continued. "She looks to me more like Artemis than the succulent goddess of passion, the tempting mother of whoredom."

Again, he waited.

The smile faded from Alsirae's face. "It has been fourteen months since we last spoke to each other in person. I would think you would be more conversational. Is something troubling you?"

_Everything. _He said nothing.

"Oh, come now, Zechs, if something is hindering your enjoyment of this place, I want to know what it is. Did something happen before you left for Earth? Something with Miss Noin, by any chance?"

"A slight argument," he mumbled, needing to tell Alsirae _something. _

Alsirae nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I can conclude that it was only a _slight _argument by the mark on your face. It's about the size of Miss Noin's fist, is it not? And the darker bruised area is about where her middle finger would be if her hand were balled into a fist." He paused, smiled again. "But I suppose you don't care to talk about it, do you?"

"I would rather not."

Alsirae sat back in the chair. "And the Prince returns to silence," he said mockingly, and yet endearingly. "If I didn't know you any better, Zechs, I would swear you were still a virgin."

He blinked, startled.

Alsirae laughed again. "I knew that would bring some emotion out of you. Your stoicism will be your downfall one day, I fear. Speak to me, Zechs, and when I say speak, I mean for you to truly to that. Don't simply answer my questions. I expect something from you, too."

Zechs shrugged and cleared his throat. "The counteroffensive–"

Alsirae's hand slammed down on the desk wearily. "_Not_ about the counteroffensive. You've provided me with enough information on it recently, therefore unless it is of the utmost importance —and if you've waited this long to tell me, I'm assuming that it is not— I will not hear it. Let's not even talk of war, but if you insist upon it, let's talk of wars we saw in the past, when battles still meant something."

Zechs gave a tight, cynical smile. "Are you saying that this war is meaningless?"

"Isn't it?"

"If you believe so, then I suppose it must be."

Alsirae's eyes narrowed in consideration. "And what do you think it is, Zechs?" he asked, with no malice just as his eyes showed none but rather with an amused interest.

"I think it has some meaning, perhaps more so than the battles of the past. The people who rise against you will know what it is they are fighting for this time, and what life is without it. They may be fewer this time, perhaps they will be more, but all the same, they will know what they stand to lose, just as the people who revolted against Mariemaia in 196 did when they led the marches onto the battlefield."

"Mariemaia," Alsirae mused. "Was that not a great war? It was short, yes, and not terribly violent, but was it not great?"

"You would not be so quick to label it 'great' if you had been there," Zechs said quietly. "It was chaos."

"But a pure chaos, without death."

"For the others perhaps."

"Yes, I forget you were the only one amongst the opposition who actually took a life, and quite a few of them at that. Do you know the exact number?"

"No. I never asked for it."

"It is perhaps just as well that you did not." Alsirae fell into a long, contemplative silence. "No war is bloodless," he said finally. "Everything is a war of some kind, and no war is bloodless, even if not a single life is taken. There must always be a sacrifice."

Alsirae rose from the chair, left the desk. Zechs's eyes followed him as he crossed the room to a dark armoire, below a painting of a pale woman with hair the color of a dark rose holding a jeweled sword. He quietly pulled open the top drawer and withdrew a slender black case, and from it, gently as if it were an infant, he lifted a sword. The hilt was thick and golden, the blade long and silver, and it gleamed like a sacred relic in the sunlight that poured in from the windows. "My newest acquisition," Alsirae said, almost lovingly.

Zechs left his chair and joined him. Without another word Alsirae placed it in his hands. It was a remarkable piece, he saw as he examined it, with a satisfying weight despite its heavy appearance, and nothing less than what he would expect of Alsirae.

As he studied the blade, Alsirae moved past him, opened one of other drawers, and pulled from it another sword. This one was not quite as simple as the first, with jeweled encrusting at the top of the hilt and a straighter, heavier blade that looked as though it were designed for the sole purpose of carving human flesh. "This one is new as well," Alsirae said. "I have an entire room in which I keep my collection, but some of them I prefer to keep nearer to me, in the event I should ever want to see them while my time is consumed by other things." He gestured without looking back at the papers atop the desk.

Zechs wondered if the one of the most recent things that had consumed Alsirae's time was revising the MS report.

He took the second sword from Alsirae and walked a few paces in the direction of the door. He noticed Alsirae giving him a quizzical look but did not return, knowing very well why Alsirae had suddenly decided to show him the newest additions to his vast collection of antiquated weaponry despite any inquisitive expression he might be receiving.

Alsirae assumed his place across from Zechs. The smile that graced his face perhaps would have been beautiful to anyone else, but to Zechs it looked too malicious to inspire anything but menace.

"Zechs Marquise," Alsirae said reverently. He bowed deeply, holding his sword out to his side at first, then bringing it in to his chest, touching the tip of the blade to his heart.

"Alsirae Trecais," Zechs responded, with the same mock reverence for these false names.

Alsirae rose out of the bow. "Milliardo Peacecraft."

Zechs did the same. "Treize Kushrenada."

Treize laughed softly and waited, as he always had in the past, for Zechs to make the first move.

**II**

The duel began slowly, tentatively, but did not stay so for long. Treize usually waited to attack, tending to spend the first minutes merely blocking the advances of his opponent, but he wasted no time now. He struck out fiercely, driving Zechs back almost into the wall, and all the while smiling brilliantly. Zechs thrust the blade up in front of him just as Treize brought his own down at his head. He backed away from the wall, keeping his eyes fixed on Treize's —the next move is always in the eyes before it's in the hand— and the tip of the sword fixed over a spot above Treize's heart.

"Come on, Zechs," Treize said through half-clenched teeth, slashing again at Zechs's face. "I know you can do better than this."

Zechs muttered a response as he shielded another thrust. Treize's sword was deflected from his face but the move propelled it to his side, into his shoulder. He grunted as the edge of the slightly curved blade slide against his flesh, cutting into his arm just above his biceps.

Treize was deterred only for a moment. He advanced forward, slashing, thrusting, and behind the blade smiling still, as though the sight of Zechs's blood trickling from the slit in his black shirt pleased him. Of course it did.

Zechs had been waiting, as he sometimes had when they were younger, for Treize to become more relaxed by his overconfidence, and, as the pain in his shoulder began to dull, the opportunity to overtake him presented itself. He leapt forward, blade extended, and, slashing almost blindly, drove Treize back toward the center of the room. Above them echoed the cacophony of steel clashing against steel, as they crossed the room with no less grace than a pair of dancers. The echoes thundered in his ears so badly he could no longer discern what was their two blades colliding and what was merely reverberation.

"Very good Zechs," Treize called above the noise. He parried another thrust and pushed the blade at Zechs's face again. Zechs blocked it, but as he did he realized that Treize was allowing him to do so.

Treize brought his sword down to the left and positioned himself to slash at Zechs's side. _He's going to fake it,_ Zechs thought, watching his deceptive cobalt eyes, and as he would have moved to block it Treize pivoted and thrust the sword at Zechs's chest. Zechs swung the heavy blade at the base of Treize's own just as he felt the tip of it graze his flesh, cutting across Treize's hand and knocking the hilt from his grip.

The sword fell to the floor, clattering against the marble, where it lay like a gleaming corpse.

The echoes above them died.

All this happened in only an instant. Before Treize had a chance to move Zechs rushed at him, pushing the edge of his sword against his throat and driving him to his knees.

"I died for you once, you son of a bitch," he growled, pressing the blade closer against Treize's neck and the thick vein pulsing beneath the flesh. "And by God I will _not_ do it again."

Treize choked out some unintelligible response.

Zechs released him. He picked up the defeated sword and carried them both to the armoire where they were currently concealed, not even glancing back as Treize rose to his feet behind him. He was vaguely aware of the possibility that Treize would decide to make him go back on his oath here and now.

"Excellent, Milliardo," Treize said, a little hoarsely, quietly clapping in mock praise. "I see you haven't lost your touch over the years."

"Nor have you," Zechs retorted. The pain in his shoulder was returning, much sharper now than it had been even when he could still feel the cold steel sticking into his flesh, and he wondered if perhaps the wound was more serious than he had previously thought.

Treize noticed him examining the cut. "Come on," he said, turning to leave the room. There was an audible note of laughter in his voice. "You can't present yourself to Her Majesty the Queen half-covered in your own blood."

Zechs raised a single questioning eyebrow and followed him out into the corridor and then into another room to the right.

This room, he saw, was little more than an indoor replica of Treize's beloved bathing pavilion in Germany, amber and white, perfectly Greek in design and construction. In the middle of the room, the smooth floor gave way to a large spa. Treize guided him past the spa to a large marble font. He washed the blood from his own hands first, examining the shallow cuts across his fingers with an amused smile.

As Zechs did the same, Treize gestured toward the small white cabinet above the font. "There are some bandages in here," he said, his voice made even quieter by the strange acoustics of the room. "I trust that your time spent with Miss Noin taking care of you hasn't made you forget how to use them."

There was no change in Zechs's expression.

Treize favored him with a smile. It was neither malicious nor innocent, this smile, nor was it even amused or cynical. It was simply that of Treize Kushrenada.

He turned and left the spa through another door, leaving Zechs alone in this concave prison of marble.

Zechs peeled the bloody black shirt off, let it drop onto the floor. The cut had stopped bleeding, and though the pain was still acute, it did not appear to be as deep as he had thought.

He washed the blood away with bitterly cold water and wrapped a length of the bandages around the wound, carefully and almost tentatively. The pain bloomed around his fingertips like the spreading petals of a crimson lily.

The door opened and Treize reentered, carrying a white French shirt over one arm.

"I believe this will fit you," he said, holding the shirt out to him.

Zechs took it and slipped it on. It fit perfectly, and Treize smiled again when he saw this.

"I thought it would be a pleasant contrast to all the black you're wearing. Too much black, really. Where did you adopt such morbid tastes?"

Zechs finished buttoning the shirt and remained silent.

"It was an excellent move," Treize said finally, indicating a thin pink line across his throat.

Zechs glanced up at him. "You were letting me block."

Treize's smile broadened into a grin. "Only when I went for your head."

"Why?"

The grin darkened and his blue eyes narrowed. He placed one hand underneath Zechs's face and turned his head toward him. "Because I didn't want to damage your face, beautiful."

He released him and left the spa again, this time through the door that opened into the corridor.

Leaving the shirt behind (he knew vaguely as he forsook it that Treize would look at it and ponder over it often in the next few days), he followed and found Treize waiting for him past the doorway.

"I arranged for a ship to meet you at the shore. It won't take you to Sanq as quickly as a plane, of course, but the fresh air will be good for you."

Zechs nodded.

Treize stepped closer to him, took his hand as two old friends about to part for a long while would. "For your own sake if not for that of anyone else as well," he said solemnly, "I hope the reunion with Her Majesty goes well."

"Thank you," Zechs mumbled inadequately.

"Then as much as I would like to continue talking with you in person, I must wish you on your way. We both have much to do before the day's ends, do we not?"

Again he nodded, and after a moment's wait, he departed.

**III**

Another of Treize's private cars took him to the shores of Thessaloníki. The boat was also a private one of Treize's, a small craft meant for a minimal crew and only a few passengers.

He stood outside on the deck for the duration of the trip of the Thermaikós Kólpos. The wind was light and cold, and he relished the feel of it blowing through his long platinum hair as he watched the evening shadows paint the ocean black. At last appeared the lights of Sanq, tiny golden stars set against a sky of mountains and street-lined valleys. If he looked closer, would he be able to see the lights of the Imperial Palace? Perhaps so.

The lights drew closer and as they did, sounds from the shores —mostly the bustle of the merchant district— came faintly to his ears. He had been away from this place much too long, and he had betrayed it so many times that he should not be allowed to return; as in the ancient Garden of Eden, he would not be surprised to find a sword-bearing angel at the gates, forever banishing him from the kingdom he had never truly deserved.

His past betrayals did not matter to him now, though. He was finally coming home.

_Home. _It was a strangely comforting thought.

**Author's Notes: **Alsirae's identity probably comes as no surprise, especially given the similarity between his name and 'Treize.' Treize has always fascinated me, despite how flighty he can be sometimes. Originally their duel was going to be more of a fencing match, but I thought a plain old dirty sword fight might be a bit more interesting for this scene. Some have wondered about Treize calling him "beautiful;" he means it as a joke, but I think it is also a play on a past relationship. I've always thought that Treize and Zechs were once more than friends. Something about Treize's personality just _oozes_ bisexuality to me. They would be a lovely couple, I think, but more physically than emotionally, as I do believe, obviously, that Zechs really does feel strongly for Noin.

Aphrodite makes her first appearance in this chapter. I will go ahead and admit, although I state this at the end of Chapter 22, that of all the various original characters who play an important role in this story, Aphrodite is by far my favorite. Her appearance in this chapter does not even begin to hint at her true personality, and I had such fun writing her. I don't want to give the wrong impression about her appearance, however; she is androgynous in that her features are very sharply defined, containing very little of the softness of the classical female beauty. Androgynes are so pretty...


	6. Chapter Five

_Chapter Five_

**I**

Night stole peacefully over the kingdom, creeping quietly in from the east, bathing the countryside not in darkness but in soft, gentle shadows. She often watched the sun set over the western gate, standing outside on the balcony when it was warm, remaining behind the great glass wall of her chambers in the winter. She had been tempted to step outside this evening despite the chill in the air, but at Pagan's advice she decided not to.

The Queen of Sanq gave a weary sigh and lifted a hand in response to a wave from one of the servants below, walking the grounds for one final time before nightfall. She turned from the window and crossed the room, her white dress rustling about her, to the full-length mirror on the opposite wall. She stared at her reflection for a moment, studying herself with a scrutiny that was fast becoming characteristic of her.

Was this the girl the world referred to as Queen Relena of the Sanq Kingdom? Was this solemn, pale waif of a woman really a monarch, and had she really once been one of the most influential people in all of Earth and space? And was it possible that this woman had once known the young people who had given so much to the citizens of the colonies and the Earth; was it at all possible that she had, in her own way, fought alongside them?

"What have you done to yourself, Relena Peacecraft?" she said, reaching to let down her long hair. No, not Peacecraft. Relena Darlian. She had never really been a true Peacecraft, only by name and by birth. Milliardo alone was worthy of the name, after years of having to fight for it, not she, and even he had returned to the name Zechs Marquise after the wars.

What had happened to her? That was not a relevant question. What had happened to them, all of them, herself, Heero, Milliardo, all the others. What had happened to _them_? Her hair fell down over her shoulders, cascading halfway down her back, dark blonde as her mother's had been rather than the platinum shared by her father and brother. She absently ran her fingers through it, then returned to the window for one final look at the darkening kingdom before she retired for the evening.

Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of movement near the palace gates. She looked toward it, expecting to see another one of her servants enjoying the gardens as the dew fell over them, then the figure stepped out of the shadows and she gasped.

"It can't be," she whispered, her hand going to her thundering heart, where she knew that it indeed could be.

He stood at the edge of the gardens. His hands were shoved into the pockets of the long coat he wore and his head was lowered, as though he didn't know that all this land and what lay beyond it rightfully belonged to him. His hair, worn in the same manner as all the men in their family before, fell past his waist now, colored amber by the fading sunlight, and although he stood four stories below her and several yards away from the palace, by the gates, there could be no mistaking who he was.

Relena ran from the window, through the generous suite of rooms that constituted the Queen's chambers, out into the hall. She sped as though the hounds of Hell themselves were after her, through the corridors, down the wide marble staircase, through another hall and down the next one, then, the heels of her white shoes clattering loudly on the floor, over the magnificent ballroom that now served as a room for reception, to the grand doors at the head of the palace.

_Across the weltering deep she ran, a stranger thing was never seen. _

The cold twilight air assaulted her as she threw herself across the threshold, stinging her exposed hands and shoulders. Her eyes watered and she lost sight of his tall, shadowy figure.

"Milliardo!" she cried out, fumbling forward as a swift, icy breeze arose, as though to further separate them.

_The damned stood silent to a man, they saw the great gulf set between. _

"Let the damned stay damned," she muttered in response to the untimely recollection of lines to the poem her brother had once read to her when they were young, her only memory of him, and she ran forward as her voice reached his ears and he looked in her direction.

He met her as she ran, sweeping her up into his arms like a warm angel of divine mercy.

"You'll freeze to death out here, Princess," he said calmly, though the usual monotony of his voice was broken by an underlying affection. He walked her back toward the palace, still holding her close against him, and only once the doors were firmly shut behind them did he allows himself to embrace her.

"How many months has it been," she asked, "since we last met like this?"

He pressed his lips gently to her forehead. "My Princess, I don't believe we ever have."

At last, moments after he had done so to her, she released her hold on him. He placed his hands on her shoulders and held her out from him.

"You've grown so much," he said, and they both knew he wasn't simply meaning physically. "Much more than I ever expected you to."

"Is that regret I hear in your voice, brother?"

"Perhaps." He offered her a warm smile. It was only in these past two years since the wars had ended that they had been able, as brother and sister, to smile to each other.

There was a sharp gasp behind them. Milliardo turned in time to see one of the servants, an older lady who had served under their parents years ago, rush forward at him.

"Prince Milliardo," she said happily, beaming at the man she had cared for when he was hardly more than an infant. She stopped a few feet short of him, made as if to bow, then, in her excitement forsaking the titles and formalities, she threw her arms around him.

He returned the embrace awkwardly, looking at Relena with an amused expression on his face. "How have you been, Lanka?" he asked when the old woman finally let go of him.

Lanka replied in an enthusiastic rush, explaining to her prince how much she enjoyed her life now that all armed forces had been abolished, how her children were, how much the people at the palace had missed him, going on as though she were completely unaware that the returned prince had just spent the past sixteen years of his life fighting as a top militant soldier. Many of the older servants did seem to be attempting to forget who the two heirs to the throne were and what they had done years before, Relena had noticed, and perhaps this was for the best.

Talking still, Lanka unconsciously went off into a florid torrent of Greek, of which Relena could only barely decipher a few words, and Milliardo flashed her a bewildered glance. She found herself wondering where Miss Noin was, for in the past, during her stint as captain of the Royal Guard, it seemed she had always been able to translate, regardless of what language.

Lanka's cry had alerted another of the servants, and as she at last turned to resume her duties before going to bed, Pagan entered the ballroom. He did not seem surprised in the least to see her brother; rather, he smiled and bowed deeply as he had done in the Prince's presence for so many years.

"Welcome again to your kingdom."

Milliardo nodded. How awkward he seemed, Relena realized as she watched him, as if he had never in his life been treated as royalty.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Your Highness?" Pagan asked.

Milliardo's arm went around her waist. "Nothing for me, thank you," he said, his voice as solemn as it always was, "but I believe Her Majesty could use something especially warm to drink."

Pagan nodded and gave a knowing smile. "Very well then." He left them again to their own reunion.

Milliardo released her and crossed the great room, falling into a chair on the opposite side. She followed him. He was visibly more tired when she came to him, his eyes hazy and half-closed, sitting not as a prince would but rather with one leg lazily propped up on the chair's arm and his head resting against its back.

She reached out to him, took his hand between both of hers. "Is something wrong, Milliardo?"

He looked up at her. She always saw two people when he looked at her, one a strong, capable soldier, the other a scarred, broken but still innocent young man. But they were both her brother, both the man who was even now described as the Prince with the face of an angel and the one who had, for reasons she herself did not yet understand entirely, threatened the complete destruction of the Earth, and there was nothing either of them could do to change that.

She loved them both, the man with the mask and the one beyond. She knew that now, and she regretted all the times she had once thought otherwise. She loved him.

"Nothing is wrong," he replied, lightly kissing the hand that lay atop his. "Nothing is wrong, and yet at the same time everything is. Does that make any sense at all, my dear sister?"

"Unfortunately, yes. Will you please talk to me about it, Milliardo? Or am I asking for this too soon? You've just arrived and I don't even know why you've returned yet, and here I am asking you to empty out your troubled heart for me. Or perhaps it isn't for me to be there for you in that way. It seems to me that honor has only ever gone to Miss Noin." His expression fell at the name. Had she said something she shouldn't have?

"Milliardo?"

"Hmm?"

"Where is Miss Noin? I don't mean to pry, I'm only wondering if I should have one of the servants ready to receive her sometime tonight. Will she be joining you?"

He shook his head solemnly.

She felt a lump rise in the back of her throat. "Nothing has happened to her, has it?"

"No. Lucrezia is fine, physically at least. I cannot speak for her emotional state at the moment."

His cryptic response only further fueled her confusion and her concern.

His icy blue eyes met hers again, and he gave a weak smile, tightening his own hold on her hand. "I'm worrying you, aren't I?"

She nodded.

"I'm sorry, Princess. I know there is much for both of us to say, but as it is, I am too tired to even think tonight. Please forgive me."

"Let me give you a room then," she offered, pulling him to his feet. "There is nothing you should apologize for."

He merely nodded and sluggishly allowed her to lead him up the stairs, both flights on opposite ends of the palace, to the corridor opposite the one on which her own quarters were. She tried the third door from the hall's end and, upon finding it unlocked, led him inside. "This room is never used," she said, turning on a lamp and softly illuminating the palely colored parlor of the suite, "but it is kept clean in the event of any sudden visitors."

He released her hand, turned to survey the room. "It is not a guest room."

"The sudden visitor in mind was you."

He raised an eyebrow at her. Few men did not look condescending when they did this. Her brother was one of these. "Will this room do?" she asked.

"Why would it not?"

She smiled, a sincere loving smile in spite of her confusion.

"Please, if you'll excuse me," her brother said, obviously stifling a yawn.

"Of course." She stepped forward and embraced him once more. "Goodnight, Milliardo."

"Goodnight, Relena."

"Shall we talk more once you've rested?"

"If you'd like."

All of this said with both of them speaking in whispers like children who had stayed up long past their bedtime in the midst of some game or story. And weren't they still children? Yes, and that was how they would always seem to each other. Their youth together had been stolen from them years ago, and no amount of awkward, formal contact they could have with each other now could attain everything that had been lost then.

"Oh, Milliardo," she sighed into his ear, and though she had not felt them rising in her eyes a thin stream of tears fell down her cheeks. She sobbed and buried her face into his stone-hard chest.

"It's all right, Princess," he whispered, stroking her hair. "Whatever it is you cry for, it will be all right."

She tried to say something in agreement and could not, tried to nod and failed at this, too. The only thing she could do was step away from him and look into his cold eyes as they pierced hers; they were recognizably the eyes of her brother, but at the same time, they were the eyes of a stranger.

"I've missed you, Milliardo," she said, searching in vain to find some sort of emotion in his eyes. "I don't really even know you, but I've missed you so."

"We'll talk about this later," was his quiet reply, and he turned away from her, walking slowly toward the bedroom. She watched him disappear, then left his suite to return to her own, stunned still by her brother's sudden, inexplicable reentrance into her life. She even now only half-believed it had really happened.

Pagan met her at the door, holding an ornate silver tray, upon which rested a china cup.

"Prince Milliardo thought that something warm might be good for you," he said. "I believe this is what he had in mind."

Her brow furrowed and she took the cup, took a small sip from it. The thick liquid burned her throat and its warmth spread all throughout her body, banishing from her blood the chill that had set in when she ran outside to greet her brother.

_Brandy,_ she thought. _Of course Milliardo would think of it._

"Thank you, Pagan," she said, opening the door to her room. "Bring me another in about fifteen minutes."

"As you wish, Miss Relena."

She retreated to her bedroom, glass of brandy tucked tenderly into her hand. She took another drink from it, hardly the ginger sip she had taken earlier. A year ago she would have cringed at the idea of herself drinking, but now she found it only befitting. Milliardo had told her she had grown, but she knew what he meant, and all those around her would wholeheartedly agree with him. She was not the innocent pacifistic girl she had been when she had first met the people presently in her life, her brother included. She did not know who she was now. But certainly, the sweet princess Relena, the proclaimed Orphan of Sanq, was forever gone, and it was a sad but good riddance to her.

She went to the wardrobe, selected from it a white French shirt and a loose burgundy skirt. She changed out of her white silken gown into these simpler clothes, but the transition from a queen's garments to those of a civilian did nothing to change her disposition.

She went then to her adjacent study and sat at her desk, drinking her brandy as the tears dried slowly on her face.

Milliardo had come home, after all these years away. For what reasons and for how long she did not care, but just knowing that he was here, safely asleep under this roof made her feel something, didn't it? Of course it did, though she was still too stunned by his sudden appearance to know exactly what.

Grown. _Changed. _Was that what he had seen in her eyes when he told her they would talk later and turned his back on her, that change? She was suddenly afraid that he _had_ seen it. What would her beautiful brother do if he only knew what she had done in the many months since they had last spoken?

_All innocence lost_. She had heard that her father, the great King Peacecraft, had used those words to describe the young soldiers who lived through battle, and she believed it was an accurate description of herself as well. She was no longer innocent or pure as Milliardo had once asked her to remain, not in any way. She would even now rather die in her idealism than live the life of soldier, but underneath the elegant gowns and sweet pacifistic words, she bore her own battle scars. She had given it all away these past two years, her pride, her ideals, her hopes, most of her faith; even her body had she given, for no purpose whatsoever. Nothing remained of what she had been.

Warmed by the brandy, she smiled tightly at the thought of her brother's reaction if he were ever to find out that the quiet, virginal Queen of Sanq had taken a man into her bed. He would be angry, that was a given, regardless of whom the other party was; she herself was angry. But there was nothing she could do to change the past.

Her affair had been kept in the utmost secrecy. No one, not even a single one of the servants, had known about these confidential trysts and there could be no lingering effects of what she had done; the two of them had been careful enough to ensure that there was no child. Perhaps it would have been different if there were any emotion involved. She had never tried, not even as she closed her eyes and slowly ran her fingertips across his back as he moved over her, to convince herself that she was in love. There was no love from either of them, nor was there desire or even physical need. Enjoyment as well was absent from these interludes.

So why, she asked herself, did she endure them?

Would her people understand, if knowledge of her private life were ever to be made public? Would Milliardo? Perhaps, but more than likely not. There was obvious emotion in his relationship with Miss Noin, however badly concealed it might be. He was too inwardly reliant upon the former Captain of the Guard to be able to engage in any kind of relationship with her without endearing her with _some_ emotion.

Why did she do these things then, knowing how meaningless it all was and how much she hated herself for it afterward? Only God knew, she supposed. She certainly did not.

She could only pray that Milliardo never found these things out.

She emptied the cup of brandy in one swallow. That was all right. Pagan would be bringing her another one soon.

"Heero," she muttered under her breath, speaking this name for the first time in months, "I've become worse even than you, haven't I?"

There could be no answer.

Warmed and lightened by the brandy, she leaned back in her chair and began to laugh softly to herself.

**II**

He had meant to send a message to Lucrezia before falling asleep, but by the time he had locked himself in the bedroom and fumbled his way out of his heavy coat he was, as he had explained to Relena, too tired to even think. He sat on the edge of the great bed and lazily pried off his boots, throwing them haphazardly into a corner across the room. He unbuttoned the collar of his shirt, and at long last threw back the covers on the bed. He unconsciously gathered the blankets up to his chin and buried himself in them in the manner of a child.

Lucrezia had often laughed at him when he had done this in their bed, but always with affection. When he had been too tired to move even after she laughed, she had simply wrapped her arms around the bundle into which he had nestled himself and they had slept like that.

He was suddenly aware that he missed her. It had been days since he had shared a bed with her, since he had even seen her, and he had become used to sleeping alone on the living room sofa on Mars, but lying alone in a bed for the first time in months without the knowledge that she was just in the next room was quite different.

But he was too tired to think even of his lovely, violet-eyed Luca now. He pressed his face into the pillow and sleep fell instantly over him.

In a dream he would not remember when he awoke, she held him, and rather than the silence of the palace, he heard only her voice.

**III**

He awoke sometime after midnight. Though he had slept but a few hours he felt well-rested, and silently he kicked the covers down to his ankles and rose from the bed.

His mouth was dry with some vile taste. Was it too late to ring for one of the servants to ask that a bottle of wine be brought to him? It probably was. That posed no problem, however. He knew where the wine was kept and how to get there without disturbing anyone.

He retrieved his boots and quietly slipped out of his suite. The corridors were dark and empty, perfect for his expedition.

He took a candle from the decorative candelabrum that lined one side of the hall and lit it with a match from the pack he found beside it. The light the small flame produced was sufficient to guide him throughout the red-carpeted maze and down the staircases, through the vast kitchen to the narrow stairs beyond. He descended to the underground room, feeling the chill deepen with every stair, until he found himself standing before the largest wine cellar in the kingdom. So Relena had had this part of the palace reconstructed as well.

He was not as meticulous as Treize when it came to vintage; he walked down the first row and decided upon only the third bottle he picked up. Holding the neck of the bottle in one hand and the candle in the other, he ascended the cellar stairs, latching the door behind him.

He returned to the suite Relena had given him, set the wine on the desk in the parlor. He went to the bedroom and then to the large closet, hoping to find what he needed there.

A few shirts and pairs of pants hung on a porcelain rod. They were all his, things he had left when he had last been to Sanq. Relena must have had them all pressed again and moved to this room.

He felt along the shelf at the top of the closet, not quite tall enough to look into it even at his height. After only a few seconds his fingers grazed the item for which he searched.

With a satisfied grunt he reached up and withdrew the small computer from the shelf. A fine layer of dust lay atop its cover and he blew it off, then took it into the parlor and, because he feared the batteries were no longer useful, plugged it into the wall beside the desk.

The wine he made wait until he had finished this task.

He meant the message to be cursory and unrevealing of any remorse he was feeling at leaving her or for _why_ he had been forced to leave, but, even while a planet away from him, she rendered him weak as she always did.

_Luca, _

_I have reached the Earth and am staying in the Sanq Kingdom. Her Majesty Relena has been gracious enough to give me a room in the Imperial Palace. All is well here. I wish you luck on your current mission._

This was as far as he made it before he could no longer suppress the urge to make the message more personal. This was, after all, Lucrezia to whom he was writing, the only woman he had ever really loved despite his pathetic inability to put that emotion into words, and what he was writing so far sounded like something he would send to Midii Une.

_Please forgive me for my irrational behavior over the past days. Nothing can justify the way I have acted toward you and I will not even try to do so. I can offer you nothing but my sincerest apologies, and a plea for your forgiveness. _

_Please try to understand, Lucrezia. You know how I feel toward you, and please be assured that the circumstances that made it necessary for me to come to Earth are not enough to alter that. I would explain them all, everything, to you if I could, but right now that is not possible. _

_I am sorry, Luca. Please understand. _

He signed the message and commanded it to be sent to her computer. Weak, it was, every word of it. He had, even before the Eve Wars in which he had realized it, always been utterly spineless when it came to her.

He would have liked to believe that his father would have been ashamed of him if he knew of his son's weakness, but he knew the opposite was true. This was a shared trait between his father and Odin Lowe, the belief that without the expression of emotion life was meaningless. Zechs's stoicism, like that of so many who were best at feeling nothing, he had gained from warfare, from watching men die and then in turn killing their killers; he wondered how much different the proverbial and literal wars his father and Odin had fought had been.

_Everything is a war._

He would never be worthy of being his father's son.

He closed the computer and shut off its power. Then, without even taking a moment to consider where he was going, he left his room again, chilled bottle of wine in hand.

He crept quietly to the other wing of the palace, where, he knew, the great library that had been his father's pride had been restored. He entered the room without a sound and closed the door behind him, then found the lamp on the table at the library's heart and fell into a large velvet chair beside it.

A portrait of his father hung on the eastern wall. He stared at it, rarely blinking, as though by permanently fixing his eyes to it he would eventually come to some great revelation, something akin to deciphering the patterns of wet tealeaves. He could just barely make out the golden inscription on the plate at the bottom of the portrait: God protect and keep the King, Francis Juilliard Peacecraft II, Crowned in the year After Colony 163.

Would he never lose the feeling of guilt and damnation that stole over him whenever he thought of his father? Perhaps not. Perhaps this was God's punishment for him, meted out in recompense for every life, both guilty and innocent, he had ever taken.

He opened the bottle of wine, turning his face away from the spewing foam. He decided it would be foolish to worry about the formalities and retrieve a glass. Instead, he tilted his head back and drank straight from the bottle.

He had gulped down the length of the neck of the bottle when he heard the door behind him open.

**IV**

She stopped in the doorway, shocked to find him there. He looked at her with the same astonishment.

"Milliardo, I thought you were asleep."

He nodded. "I was."

Her eyes drifted over him and she realized he was holding a bottle of wine in one hand. They were still strangers to each other but, she thought amusedly, it seemed they had already reached a pivotal moment in the sibling relationship: getting drunk together. She wondered if he had somehow known that she would request another glass of 'something especially warm' and what effect it would have on her.

She walked toward him, gingerly as though this were indeed a stranger she had stumbled upon in this room she frequented when she could not sleep. "Is something wrong, Milliardo?"

He turned the bottle up again. She had commissioned the palace to be fully restored to its original glory, with everything placed where it had been in her father's reign, and it seemed that her brother's memory had not faltered and he had been successfully able to locate the wine cellar. She didn't think he had toured the palace at all the last time he had visited, immediately after the Mariemaia incident.

"No, Princess. I simply woke up."

She tried to smile and gave up on it after only a minimal effort. Such masks did not seem befitting of them this evening.

He silently offered her the chair across the room from his. She sat habitually in the manner of the Queen of Sanq, and he smiled at this.

"When you first spoke to me," she said with a smile of her own, "I was afraid you were going to address me as 'Queen.'"

He gave a soft laugh and took another drink. Was he going to drink that entire bottle?

"To be honest, my dear sister, the thought never crossed my mind. You will always be a young princess to me." As an afterthought, he added, "Does this disturb you?"

"No, not at all. In fact I prefer it, either that or my name, but it seems that no one except for yourself, Miss Noin, and the Gundam pilots were ever capable of simply calling me 'Relena.'" She bit her tongue the second the words left her lips. "I shouldn't say such things. I know that the people of--"

She was interrupted by his laughter.

"How much did you drink this evening?" he asked. It seemed that alcohol brought out some kind of humor in him. Her hand went defensively to her chest. "I simply had what you asked Pagan to bring me. You were right, brother, it was quite warm."

"You drank the one for warmth, but would I be right in assuming you had another for your own enjoyment?"

She tried to flash him a shocked look and failed. The only person who would have been capable of mustering that expression right now was a dead girl who had lived in joyous peace for fifteen years before discovering that she was by birth a princess. She had been killed in battle, that girl.

Milliardo drained the bottle an inch more and returned to his usual somberness. It was all too sad — she felt more comfortable around him when he was this solemn, impenetrable rock of a human being than when he suddenly regained his ability to laugh.

"Forgive my question, Princess," he said. "You've no need to answer it, and it is improper of me to make such insinuations about the Queen of Sanq."

She did not reply.

They sat in silence for a while, she with her fidgeting hands, Milliardo with his bottle of wine that was fast becoming empty.

At last he threw his head back one final time and poured the rest of the wine into his throat. He stared at the empty bottle for a moment as if puzzling over what it was, then he laid it aside on the table next to his chair.

"Are you going back to bed now, Milliardo?" she asked, regretting that she had earlier hoped he would.

"No. Wine doesn't really make me tired anymore. It doesn't even make me that drunk."

This did not surprise her in the least.

"Shall we talk then," she asked, "or am I asking too soon?"

He gave an indifferent shrug.

"We barely know each other," she continued, hoping to draw some sign of emotion from him. "Should we talk then as a brother and sister who've barely even met?"

His eyes rolled up to meet hers.

"Are we truly brother and sister, Milliardo? In anything other than blood, are we truly siblings? Or are we really just acquaintances who are trying to progress to becoming friends?"

"My darling Relena," he sighed finally. "I believe we are closer to the latter."

"I'm afraid that I agree with you." She waited. When he remained silent, she took a deep breath and asked, "What has brought you back to Sanq?"

He sat up in the chair. Relena wondered if he, too, felt more like part of an interrogation than one engaged in civilized conversation.

"I have some business to attend to on Earth," he replied.

"Preventer business?"

"No. It's a bit more personal than that."

She took this as a warning not to question him further on the matter. "Is Miss Noin still on Mars?"

"Yes. It would not have been wise for her to leave with me."

Was he _trying_ to feed her curiosity? "Then she really will not be joining you."

Milliardo raised a platinum eyebrow under the shadows of his platinum hair. "Were you hoping that she would?"

"I was only wondering. It's always seemed to me that everywhere you go she's at your side and when she's not, she's doing some great favor for you."

"She _does_ do nothing to conceal her opinion of me," he agreed, but he sounded a bit hurt as he said it.

There was nothing but petty small talk between them for close to twenty minutes; the twenty minutes only reinforced within her the sense that for the past sixteen years, they had been related only by the blood shared between them.

It became apparent after some time that he was tiring of their triviality. He leaned forward in the chair, his eyes locking onto hers with a directness that almost frightened her. "Be honest with me, Relena. How have you fared since I left? Don't tell me that you're still simply adjusting to your new life. If I wanted to hear that, I would watch the damned news. Tell me honestly."

She had hoped they would not come to this point in the conversation. She had told herself that if they did come to it she would be able to lie artfully enough to convince him, and even as she opened her mouth to respond she still believed this, but something in his voice silenced her even before she spoke. She did not have to search for what it was; it struck her immediately, and with the force of each of the bullets she had earned in the past but had never received.

The expression on his somber face revealed no emotion at all but his voice betrayed him. He was not speaking of himself but of her, and all that she asked of her was honesty, yet she had never seen him so vulnerable.

_You are his weakness_, Miss Noin had once told her. _Don't get me wrong, I know that somewhere within his heart he loves me just as I love him, but it's you he loves most_. She knew this was no longer true; these most recent years that they could have spent trying to regain what they should have once had they had barely even spoken, and in that time an even larger rift had formed between them. Perhaps Miss Noin's half-sentimental, half-embittered words would have maintained their truth if Relena had not asked her brother to go to Mars. He had made his choice then, had he not? He had asked Miss Noin to accompany him to the planet, and less than a month after arriving there the two of them had dropped out of sight completely. Maybe he had once regarded her over Miss Noin —in fact, she was quite certain that he had— but in the end, given but a few moments to decide, it was Relena whom he had left behind.

But why then did he look at her with so piercing a stare, and what was this guarded vulnerability she heard in his voice? Still his weakness? No, not so much as she had once been, but certainly something of that nature to him.

She lowered her eyes from his. "I must admit," she replied, "that I have been in much better circumstances before. It seems I've overestimated myself and what I'm capable of, and if I don't find a remedy to the situation, the kingdom will begin to suffer."

He thought on this, obviously dissatisfied with her answer. The directness left his eyes and she stifled a sigh of relief at this.

Milliardo rose from the chair and walked behind her own. She turned her head to watch him, a little too wildly and with widened eyes, and upon seeing this he laughed quietly as he placed his hands on her shoulders.

"You used to be so good, so kind. Three years ago if I would have come to you like this, even knowing all that I have done, you wouldn't have flinched away from me as though you were afraid I was going to strangle you." His hands momentarily tightened at the base of her neck. "Even in the short time we've known each other," he continued, releasing her, "you have asked so much of me and I complied whenever I could, but there was only one thing I asked of you and already you have forsaken it."

"And what would that be, dear brother?" she asked, and too late she realized how embittered her voice had sounded. He sighed heavily, wearily. There was something vulnerable in that sigh just as there had been in his eyes, and at the sound of it tears sprang to her eyes. The sigh, the final sound of defeat, shamed her more than any harsh words could have done; it hurt her even more than would a punch delivered by his strong, outraged fist.

"You have forgotten it then," he mumbled dejectedly. She heard him turn away from her.

_Why did he, the great soldier, have to sound so broken?_

"No," she protested quietly, uselessly. "I don't know."

"I asked you, when you came on Libra, to always remain kind. That was all."

She _had _forgotten, she realized to her own chagrin as well as his, but only of recent. Before these past months that, according to her brother, had changed her so much, not a day had gone by that she had not recalled his final request that she had been too outraged to hear when he made it.

She rose from the chair, went to him, returned his gesture by placing her hand on his shoulder. He flinched under her touch just as she had under his. Was there a single person alive whose touch did not initially startle him?

"Have I failed you so badly, brother?" she asked, her chin quivering.

"Not intentionally, I don't believe." He paused, his head bowed. "But then I asked this when you were a child. Perhaps you haven't changed that much at all. Perhaps you've simply grown up."

A single tear rolled down her face. She tried to stifle a sob and failed miserably, and he turned to look at her.

"Why do you cry so, Princess?" he whispered, as an endearing smile crossed his face.

She could not answer. "Milliardo," she said, and without giving him a chance to move as she feared he would, she embraced him. After a stunned moment his arms, powerful enough to crush her, slid around her. He held her close against him, fiercely as he had tried to do on Libra once, as though he would never see her again after this night and was already grieving for her. Perhaps he was grieving for her, tearlessly weeping for a girl he had once watched from afar in admiration of her innocence, a girl whose kindness he had once fought and killed to preserve, a girl who had, in another world and another life, been his sister.

_And I grieve for you too, Milliardo_, she thought, closing her eyes lest her tears become one great, rushing flood. _I grieve for the boy you once were, the beautiful prince, the Martyr of Sanq as they called you when it was believed you had died when our parents did, just as they called me the Orphan. The Orphan and the Martyr, like a pair of sainted children who died for some beautifully noble cause. Is that what we died for, Milliardo? Some noble cause? Or have we lost our lives in some great, meaningless battle, for no reason at all?_

_The Orphan and the Martyr; I grieve for them both, but I think that now I grieve for you more. I grieve for your own innocence, lost so many years before mine. I grieve for the absolution you deny yourself. I grieve for a time when you were not my protector, not my guardian, but simply my brother. I grieve for you because you will not do it for yourself. I grieve for Mother and for Father whom I never knew, for the mother and father whom I've betrayed. I grieve for every person who gave their lives for the two of us. I grieve for Miss Noin, for strangely I fear that she has lost you. For all the soldiers we tried to save. I grieve for the five pilots to whom I gave my heart, and for whom I would just as quickly have given my soul. I grieve for us all. _

_Let me do it, my brother. Let me grieve. Do not ask why I cry or why I've changed. Do not ask how I've been since you left or if something troubles me. Just please let me know that I am not dreaming this, that you are indeed here with me, and that all is forgiven between us. Let my cry on your shoulder. Hold me, my dear Milliardo with the face of an angel. Let the seraphs and saints with one great voice cry with us. Let this be the last rose placed on our graves. _

"I love you, Milliardo," she whispered. "I've never been given a chance to say that, but I do."

Against her face, his breath caught in his chest and for one moment his hold on her loosened. He started to say something, stopped.

He did not have to return the sentiment. She knew without ever having him say it that he loved her and that he loved her more even than she, at this moment, loved him.

He held her until her crying ceased. He had spoken not a word, neither to comfort nor to condescend as she cried, nor did he speak when he released her. He crossed back to the table and plucked up the empty wine bottle, then carried it to the wastebasket by the door.

"You've done well for yourself, Princess," he said finally, his back to her. "Whatever state you've been in as you did it, you certainly have done well."

"There are some who would beg to differ with you, Milliardo."

"There are some who still believe that the White Fang's actions were noble," he countered. "For every person, organization, or action that comes into existence, there will always be someone to support and someone to oppose. Had you not realized that yet, Princess?"

She sighed. "Unfortunately, I have. And you're not the first to tell me that. Something of that nature seemed to be one of Miss Noin's favorite sentiments when she was here." She went toward him, touched his arm. "Be honest with me, Milliardo. Is something wrong with Miss Noin? Is something wrong between the two of you? You may not publicize it, but your relationship is hardly a well-kept secret."

He gave a short, quiet laugh. "Wouldn't it be so much easier if it were something as simple as that?"

"Wouldn't what be easier?"

"Don't worry about it, Princess. It does not concern you. Not yet at least." He looked at her, and before she could question this cryptic statement, he said, "Goodnight, Princess" and left the room.

She watched after him, and when she finally was able to move again she rushed out into the hall behind him.

He was gone. He should not have been able to cross into another corridor already but nonetheless he was not there, and she could not hear the softest sound of his footsteps.

"Like a ghost," she said under her breath, smiling. "So have you always entered and exited my life, Milliardo."

She returned to the library, and the moment she stepped past the doorway something on the table caught her eye.

At the center of the table, in a shimmering golden censer, stood a lone candle, still burning, as it had been when she had entered the room to find her brother and his loosely clutched bottle of wine. How had she not noticed it until now?

Smiling still, she crossed the room to the table and softly blew out the flame. She extinguished the lamp and, bathed in darkness, returned to her own bedchamber, where she was at last able to sleep.

**V**

They did not see each other again until after noon the following day. Milliardo slept through breakfast — for which Relena herself was only half-awake — and was still asleep when she returned, clad in a burgundy riding uniform, from the stables after taking one of the horses around the palace grounds, from the entrance at the gates to the white seashore at its edge. She took another shower after this and changed into a simple blue dress, and when she passed her brother's room, still no sound could be heard from within. She rapped quietly against the door and once called his name, but received no answer.

"Did my brother call and ask for anything to brought up to him?" she asked Pagan when she came across him in the front hallway downstairs.

The response was negative to her relief, and she was again left to the assumption that he was sleeping off the wine. Sometime after she had eaten lunch she finally spotted him outside, walking by the gardens. She slid into a coat and went after him.

He never seemed surprised to see her. He was quiet but smiling, and there was no sign of how much he had drunk the night before upon his face. He was dressed as simply as she was, in black pants and a blue shirt with a black jacket over it. She was still getting accustomed to seeing him outside of military dress.

They talked only briefly as they walked, she taking his hand as though they were still children and he her guide in whatever youthful adventure they would embark on before their mother called them back inside.

"Last night," she said, glancing up at him.

"Hmm?"

"You said you'd asked only one thing of me."

"And?"

"You were wrong."

He stopped, looking at her quizzically.

She continued. "You once asked me to try to understand what you were doing with the White Fang."

He shook his head. "I never asked you to understand. I told you that I wished you _had_ understood."

"Then why did you never ask me to try?"

He hesitated, sighed. "Because I knew you wouldn't be able to."

They started walking again. She had not been aware of how long they had walked until they found themselves at the shore. Milliardo released her hand and went to the shore's edge, where the water rushed in from the breaking waves. He pushed up his sleeves and let the water run over his hands, as though trying to wash away the blood he believed stained them.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she said, crouching beside him.

He merely nodded. "I have to leave you for a while tonight," he said finally.

The smile that had been on her face fell. "But why?"

"Don't worry, Princess, I am coming back. I expect to return shortly before midnight."

"Where are you going, Milliardo?"

He did not answer. Another wave crashed in and he soaked his hands in it, watching the water with the fascination of a child. At last he spoke, but it was not to her, not, perhaps, to anyone. He looked up at the sky, where a few clouds had begun to gather, and whispered one word, then rose to his feet and began back toward the palace.

His voice had been low and all around them the waves had been churning and thundering, but still she had been able to make out what he had said, and it saddened her more than knowing he was going to leave.

_Lucrezia._

**VI**

With a tap on the shoulder and a quick gesture toward the back of the craft, Une relieved her as the pilot. It was probably obvious how tired she was, she supposed, and though she had volunteered for the job of piloting the carrier to keep herself occupied, she was grateful for the relief.

Lucrezia exited the cockpit and sluggishly walked to the smallest of the cargo areas, where Sally Po seemed to have set up a makeshift office. The room was dark and cold and mostly empty, a morbid semblance of her mood.

Chang Wufei glanced up at her when she entered the room, then closed his eyes again and resumed his stiff, upright position in the corner. He had been sitting against the wall, eyes closed and hands clasped in meditation, since the ridiculous delay several hours before.

"Did Une order you to come back here or did she only request it?" Sally asked, not even glancing up from her computer.

"I don't know," she mumbled, and, having no furniture other than Sally's chair in the room, she fell into the floor across from Wufei.

"I've never known you to tire so easily, woman," he said, with an amused smile rather than malice in his voice. "Or are you simply bored without Preventer Wind here to talk to?"

"Shut the hell up," she spat. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught them exchanging puzzled glances.

The bunker was silent save for the clicking of the keyboard under Sally's fingers for the next few minutes.

"Has Une contacted the colony yet?" Sally asked finally, perhaps trying to lighten the mood.

Lucrezia looked up at her. "I'm assuming she has — she's piloting now."

"Is she still angry?"

"She's just had her intelligence, her motives, and her rank questioned. Do you even need to ask?"

"I suppose you're right," Sally concluded, and turned back to her computer, abandoning all hope of getting anything other than a bitter response from her.

Lucrezia leaned forward, rested her head on her knees. There was nothing to do here, nothing even to think about, and if she did not keep herself occupied her thoughts would turn inevitably back to him. His calm, soft-spoken apologies. The new mission orders. Their final confrontation. Hitting him. _How could she have hit him?_ Turning her back and waiting for him to leave her. She had to think about these things sometime, but not now. Please, God, not now.

Silently, she admitted to herself that she was indeed grateful that Une had decided to join them. Midii was the only one here who would understand, without being told, what she was going through, even if the only comfort she could offer was her emotionless voice and her hard, calculating mind. A little less emotion might do her good now.

Of course, Une had not accompanied them for Noin's benefit. Lucrezia was not idealistic enough to believe that. She was going to L3 to be near Trowa, her beloved Nanashi. The true nature of whatever relationship they might have was unknown to Lucrezia, but in the midst of a moment Une would only call weakness later, she had confided to her that they had once known each other, years before Nanashi adopted a name and became a Gundam pilot and Midii joined the ranks of OZ.

The end always went back to the beginning. As his life progresses man often finds that he has in some way returned to his past. If there were anyone who would say this for certain it was Lucrezia Noin. And wasn't this what Une seemed to be doing now?

She was no longer in the halfway decent mood she had met them in, though. An hour into their flight their ship had been forced to dock at a nearby port, in order to be searched for 'illegal weapons.' They had protested and Une had done so violently, leading to an order to see proper identification for each of them, which in turn led to the contacting of the Prevention base to receive confirmation that these four individuals were indeed members of the organization on official business and that one of them was indeed the organization's President Une. The ship was then searched extensively for the alleged illegal cargo, and when nothing was found, another team stepped in to search it again.

They were finally told what was going on after waiting two-and-a-half hours to learn whether or not anything had been found. The men of the ship who forced them to dock were part of some kind of peacekeeping force the L3 cluster had commissioned. A call had been received from an unknown source on the colony that a ship carrying illegally manufactured mobile suits was expected to dock sometime during the day, and these teams had all been deployed to intercept and disarm it.

The call, with all apologies to Miss Une, was now believed to have been a foolish hoax.

They were allowed to go after receiving clearance from whomever the colonial force answered to. There was an almost palpable air of tension about them as they left, with the exception of Wufei, who had amused their temporary captors with his abilities of deep meditation.

Lucrezia was no longer aware of how long they had been on the ship, but she felt she would lose her mind if she were forced to stay on it much longer. The weightless movement seemed to be taking its toll on her.

"Noin," Sally said, gingerly touching her shoulder as if to rouse her from sleep, "there's a message for you. I believe it's from Zechs."

Lucrezia opened her eyes and looked up at the woman in mild perplexity, until she remembered that it was her own computer Sally was using.

"Delete it," she muttered.

Sally blinked. "Are you–"

"Yes, I'm sure. Delete it."

She rolled over onto her side, suddenly feeling very sick.

**Author's Notes**: I found a relevant way to work _A Ballad of Hell_ into this chapter, and after this it appears much more frequently. I genuinely do love that poem. It will eventually appear in its entirety at what I consider the apex of this story. While the plot of this story and that of the poem have ultimately nothing to do with each other, I have found that certain lines make nice parallels to some of the events that occur.

I suppose it's quite obvious that I don't like Relena now. Changes made to her character in this chapter and throughout the story are meant to reflect my own opinion of her character's innermost personality, as well as the changes that she must certainly have undergone throughout the events of the Gundam Wing series and Endless Waltz. She never had what one would call a "normal" life as she was always the child of privilege, but she was nonetheless in an instant taken out of her innocent world and thrust into the spotlight of international politics. The dialogue between her and Zechs is rather rigid but intentionally so, as I wanted this chapter to seem almost surreal.

I've received several comments regarding Zechs and Relena's relationship. Upon re-reading this chapter, I still do not see any actions and/or thoughts of a somewhat incestuous nature, but I will not disregard readers' interpretations of one. Admittedly, they do not act like brother and sister, and this is because for most of their lives, they have not known each other as siblings (particularly in Relena's case). However they _do_ think of each other is yours to decide, and some of you lovely people seem to be having a lot of fun conjecturing this one. Any comments on this are certainly welcome, as I am always interested in seeing how this chapter is interpreted.

On a final note, although I usually do not make Japanese references unless the character and/or setting is distinctly Japanese, I have left Trowa's original identity as it was in the Episode Zero, as I feel that the term Nanashi is still relevant out of context.


	7. Chapter Six

_Chapter Six_

**I **

The world above him shuddered violently, as though whatever God there was had decided man was no longer worthy of ruining the Earth and was ripping it apart. The walls of the building shook and trembled, and in one corner of the room a piece of loose clay fell from the ceiling, aided in its flight to rest on the floor by dry powdered wisps of mortar. A shrill whining —not unlike the most piercing scream of the tortured of Hell— echoed throughout every hallway of the base, and if one were on the subterranean floor he would undoubtedly be able to hear beneath that whine an underlying metallic ringing as the mobile suit prototype clattered against its restraints.

The whining-grinding-screaming ended as gradually as it had begun, and the second it faded the Earth shook again. Footsteps in the corridors. Not only one set or even two or three, but an entire army of them, all running, all stamping against the reverberating floor furiously as though Hell were behind them and Heaven ahead, but it would remain there only if they arrived at its gates within the next five seconds.

Inhuman shrieking above. Yelling, stampeding outside, in a restricted area. There were a few things this could mean, but considering the suddenness of it, the only good possibility could be eliminated.

Heero rose from the chair in the darkness. He had spent the night in this room and had intended on leaving soon, but it seemed there would be a change in his plans.

He opened the door and peered out into the corridor. It was empty despite the thundering footsteps and shouting; the echoes were coming down from some other nearby hall.

He had a feeling he knew which one.

He walked quietly toward the end of the corridor. A strange but familiar blue light emanated from the open doorway of the room in which the Roman phalanx seemed to have stopped. He did not know which was louder — the sound of them all running and shouting only moments ago or the screaming that now came from the room.

He stepped into the massive mobile suit storage facility. It was often empty, and he did not usually venture into it when it wasn't, but now it _swarmed_ with people, some in lab coats, some dressed in clothes similar to Heero's civilian garb, even one woman in a flowing dark blue dress, all shouting at one another.

As he watched this spectacle, feeling the closest thing to shock he could muster, a frenzied redheaded woman collided with him.

"Don't just stand there!" she yelled when he opened his mouth to give a half-hearted apology. "We have to get them underground _now_!"

She ran in the direction of the others.

He spotted Yuan-Chen at the top of the short staircase. The small, passive man was bellowing at the top of his lungs, pointing the others in five separate directions, yelling above them all in what seemed like every language known to man. He had been shouting in his native Chinese when Heero had first been able to make out his voice in the crowd, but had in the minute since switched to Greek, then to English. From English he made the transition to French and then Spanish, then German, then Italian, then Japanese, and, if Heero were not mistaken, he actually began shouting in Yiddish.

"Takeru!" he called out when he spotted Heero looking up at him. He motioned for Heero to come to him.

Heero reluctantly did so. "What's going on?" he asked, calmly as always but loudly enough to be heard above the roar below. The moment the last word left his mouth there was an enormous crash above them. He looked up and saw that the portal to the facility was being opened.

"This message is for you," Yuan-Chen said as quietly as possible amid the noise. He thrust a piece of parchment paper into his hand.

Heero unrolled the sheet. It was written, as though coded, entirely in Japanese with the exception of two words, the signature at the bottom of the page.

_Triton Bloom._

_Trowa._

He stood back from the edge of the stairs, following the columns of the message with one finger as he read it, oblivious to what was going on around him.

_Heero,_

_I was told by a reliable source in black that you can read this. I apologize if this message causes any inconveniences, but in these days information is more suspected of being on disks than paper. _

_Word of MS production on this colony has leaked to the Prevention Organization. I could be held partially responsible for the leak, but I am rectifying that mistake by sending this late Christmas present to you. The President of the Prevention Organization informed me that she would be sending three members to investigate the situation on the colony. I have removed every trace of evidence from the production facility and am now placing them in your care. Perhaps having the actual suits will help you in the development of the system. _

_Please inform Odin of this premature change of plans. I was not given a chance to do so. _

_Triton Bloom_

He skimmed over the message again, then rolled it up and stuck it in an interior pocket of his jacket.

"Odin isn't going to like this," someone nearby said. Heero looked up and saw another of one of the more informed members of the counteroffensive standing beside Yuan-Chen.

"Nonsense," the Chinese man replied, his voice serene but his face smiling as he watched the MS containers being lowered beneath the landing platform. "He will find it utterly hilarious."

The subordinate gave him a strange look but no further contradiction. He knew quite a bit more than many of the others did about Odin, but not enough for him to see how Odin would perceive this development. Yuan-Chen was right: Odin _would_ find it hilarious, ridiculously so.

The first container was lowered into the subterranean room and the second appeared overhead, blotting the sun from the sky completely. Somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered what this looked like from above.

The second container reached the concrete floor. The third, then a fourth, and fifth.

"That's all!" someone aboveground shouted down through the great chasm in the platform. There seemed to be an audible breath of relief from all those below but there was no pause in their action. There was still too much to be done. The portal to the underground room was sealed and the task of moving the containers out of the middle of the floor began.

"We're lucky it's a weekend," another nearby voice said. A woman walked up the short flight of stairs and joined Yuan-Chen, as comfortably as though they were friends. Heero instantly recognized her as the redhead who had all but tackled him earlier.

"Yes, we are," Yuan-Chen agreed. "Has there been any commotion among the workers who _are_ here?"

The woman shook her head. Her curly red hair flew about her face before settling back into a smooth mantle of fiery ringlets. "With all the noise in the workrooms, I doubt they were even aware of the landing."

"True," Yuan-Chen agreed, "but it would probably be wise to concoct a less controversial explanation in case."

The redhead nodded and pushed her glasses up on her nose. "How many suits are there? Do you know?"

"Exactly one hundred. Twenty suits per container, five containers."

"Is it possible that others could have been sent to Vólos?"

Yuan-Chen laughed quietly. "I do not think so, but if some were sent to Vólos, Odin certainly has a situation on his hands right now."

_And he's probably enjoying every minute of it,_ Heero thought, but said nothing.

The redhead left. Yuan-Chen turned to him, placed one slender, aged hand upon his shoulder. "You spent the night here, Takeru," he said. "And I have heard you working in that room on other nights when you were supposed to be gone. Whether you care to admit it or not, Takeru, you are tired, and your presence here at the moment is unnecessary. Go home and rest. You will be needed here tonight, when more of the engineers are here."

He nodded. To argue with such a man as Yuan-Chen was utterly futile.

He left he room. He left the base, through a much more clandestine exit than he had used previously. He left the Spanish coastline, his hands shoved into his jacket pockets. He passed on foot through a bustling city, then again found himself away from civilization, and he did not seem to notice the difference between the two.

He had the distinct feeling that he was being followed.

**II**

Relena said nothing about his inexplicable disappearance the night after he had arrived in Sanq, nor did she say anything about the phone call she had unintentionally overheard between himself and Treize. Zechs did not think she had heard anything of importance, but nonetheless he wanted to keep her as uninvolved as possible, and already it seemed she was going to make that difficult.

He slipped out of the palace unnoticed, running across the side of the vast lawn and through the gardens like a spirit fleeing from the eyes of man or the light of the sun. His hair cast strange, changing shadows behind him, and if someone inside the palace were to glance out a window on the east side they would undoubtedly be frightened, for a moment at least, by what appeared to be a hunched-over winged figure running across the Queen's grounds.

He had to climb over the stone wall at the edge of the palace grounds. He had not done such a thing in years — not since he and Lucrezia used to climb over the walls at Lake Victoria to meet at the edge of the base's property — and it sent a childish feeling of exhilaration through him. He turned to his side once, half-expecting to see Lucrezia there with him, and when he remembered he was alone, any spark of enthusiasm burning within him abruptly died.

He took the car Relena had given him for personal use. She had protested him leaving it outside the palace gates, perhaps knowing what he would do — how easily he could slip away — with the car out of earshot, but he had earlier this evening disregarded her wishes.

The drive to Vólos was long, and he was unable to keep his mind clear. His thoughts were first with Relena, but this did not last for long. The past week with her had convinced him that his fears for her had been well-founded: something had happened to her, perhaps something outside or perhaps only something within her own mind, and it had done enough damage to ensure she would not open up to him. Perhaps she would never open up to anyone again.

Did any of this surprise him, though? No, not in the least. He had known from the moment he had taken her into his arms in the main control room of Libra and asked her to remain kind that she would not always be the sweet, innocent princess she had been raised to be. He had known it just as surely as he had known that he would never be able to walk away from a war. War had a nice way of changing a person, and everything was a war. It had just taken longer to change her, that was all.

He wondered if he was right in believing that the short-lived war with Mariemaia had done more to change her than had the Eve Wars. After all, in the Eve Wars she had been only a symbol of peace, a hindrance to the actual attaining of it, but with Mariemaia it had been she who renounced her pacifism and rallied the people to fight. Some, he knew, wondered how that had felt for her. He didn't have to wonder. He already knew how it felt.

He did not dwell on his sister tonight. He would shed the last proverbial tear for her later, when he had to look at her too-knowing, too-matured face.

From there his mind wandered to Treize, whose belief that everything was a war continued to strike a nerve with him, and then to Odin Lowe, the grinning black-eyed devil. From there it progressed to Lucrezia.

There had been no response to his message, and he had not tried to contact her again. This would have been a cause for concern but he had heard from Odin that Lucrezia, along with two other preventers and President Une herself, had safely reached the L3 colony, and because of their barely-expected investigation, the completed mobile suits (minus the cockpit system that would be added before the great battle) were sent to Earth, to the secondary base in southern Spain. Odin had found the ordeal greatly amusing despite how close they had come to having the whereabouts of the base disclosed.

Knowing that she was on the colony did not quell his unease, however. There was a reason she had failed to respond, and if nothing had happened to her, that reason was most likely anger at him for what he had done to her. If that were the case, he couldn't say he blamed her.

He became lost in his thoughts, as Lucrezia had often endearingly accused him of doing in the past. So lost, in fact, that he almost did not realize it when he at last entered the city of Vólos. The base was located at the edge of the city, along the coastline, and he parked and left the car in one of the busiest places, the outer merchant district that so resembled that of the Sanq Kingdom. The streets were illuminated by neon- and lamp- and firelight, seemingly ancient and modern at the same time. The district was bustling with people in spite of the late hour, and above the roar of their intermingling conversations could be heard the calls of street vendors trying to lure people to their stands and of shopkeepers standing outside, inviting buyers into their stores.

He was pleasantly reminded of the time he and Lucrezia had gone to Italy and had spent their night touring streets such as these, yet untouched by battle.

As he passed an alleyway, a woman threw herself at him. He caught her — not intentionally but rather out of instinct — and held her out from him, too shocked to speak, too shocked to do anything but stare at her with wide, startled eyes. She swayed drunkenly in his arms, her low-cut, tight, dusty, and torn white dress rustling around her. With a laugh she brushed her brown hair out of her eyes, and when she saw his face she stopped swaying.

"Oh," she said wondrously, and that was all she could say for a moment, then she smiled and, stepping closer to him, she crooned, "You're beautiful." Before he could do anything in protest, she pushed herself up against him, moving her hips provocatively against his. "Do you want it?" she purred into his ear, in heavily accented English, her breath redolent of some sweet liquor. "It won't cost much, I promise. I always give the pretty ones a discount."

She laughed again and touched the side of his face, then her eyes rolled back into her head and she fainted.

He stared at her a moment longer, stunned, then finally shook his head and laid her down on the street corner, propping her head against the wall of a shop.

Four miles were set between the edge of the district and the secluded entrance to the base, and he walked them easily. As he had done earlier in the car, he was constantly and discreetly watching for anyone who might be following him, and, as always, there was no one.

The entrance was surrounded by a dense forest. The paved road that led to it was well-concealed and could be found only by complete accident or if one knew precisely where to look.

He followed this road until he reached the high, solid gates. A squat guardhouse stood to the left of the gates, its walls partially surrounded by cameras placed under the eaves of the roof. It was directly into one of these cameras that Zechs looked as he neared the building, partially to provide the guards within a clear view of his face and partially because he knew that a retinal scan was being performed on him as he looked, though no light shone into his eyes.

The door slid open when he stepped up to it, then immediately slid shut behind him once he entered the compact guardhouse. The lights inside were low, the air warm and scented faintly of coffee. The quiet voices of men in the midst of a conversation that had been ongoing for some time, it seemed, drifted to his ears from the small room beyond this cramped alcove.

"Welcome back, Mr. Marquise," one of the two guards on duty said, motioning him into the room. "We were just talking about you."

Zechs raised an eyebrow. "Were you?"

The guard took another drink from his coffee mug. "The history of Sanq," he said in a mock-professional tone, and he gestured toward the other guard. "The Gerschwitz-Demetras abridged version."

"We've come to your birth," the other one said. "Do you have anything to contribute?"

"Nothing you yourselves wouldn't already know," Zechs replied.

"Would you care to join us?" the first guard, Mendele Gerschwitz, offered, gesturing toward an empty chair across from them. "Your thoughts on the subject would be much appreciated."

"I'm afraid I have time only to do what I came here for. I would like to be back at the palace before dawn, otherwise I shall have to spend the morning not answering the Queen's questions."

The other guard stifled a small laugh. The thing the guards found most amusing about his words, he had always thought, was the sincerity of them.

"I'll notify Mr. Lowe," Demetras said, and he rose from his chair. For a brief moment the jacket he wore stretched across him in such a way that Zechs could see the outline of his gun in its shoulder holster.

He came back into the room only a minute later and nodded. Zechs thanked him and left the building. The doors of the gates — which surrounded the entire base with only this one entrance — swung open and he walked through them. After another half mile on the tree-lined road, he came to the base. He was given access first by the computerized locking system — no retinal scan here but rather a scan of the lines of his fingertips and palm — and then by a trio of guards who were posted at the base's main entrance. He descended to the subterranean floors alone, slowing momentarily when he passed the room in which he had awakened into this war, three months after his death.

He had not been told where Odin Lowe was but he did not need to have been. Odin was expecting this visit, and he would remain in his own dark chambers until he received it.

Zechs walked through the maze of corridors that led to Odin's offices and personal rooms — for he indeed _lived_ on the base — without any consideration as to where he was; he had the route to the underground wing of the base memorized now, and where others would have become lost, he made the correct turns without thinking.

He had once gone down the wrong corridor and had discovered, to his amusement, that it ended in a doorless concrete wall. The lowest levels of the base truly had been constructed in the form of a maze, though what purpose this had served when the base had belonged to the military he did not know.

He heard the deep, melodic hum of Odin's voice long before he reached the room. Sounds carried well in these halls, and echoes were slow to die out. The acoustics of it were rather disorienting until one became used to them.

Another voice floated out into the corridor, this one younger, not quite as deep, and strangely familiar:

"…in another month, then."

"Most likely, if all continues to go well."

"And there are no repetitions of last week's incident."

This was followed by Odin's low laugh.

Zechs paused, his pale brow furrowing in thought. He knew he had heard the voice before, sometime recently, it seemed, but he could not remember where or when.

The door to the room from which the two disembodied voices emanated was slightly ajar. Without bothering to knock Zechs pushed it open. It squealed on its heavy reinforced hinges, alerting the two men inside to his presence.

"Mr. Marquise," Odin said, looking up from the computer with his characteristic dark grin.

Zechs opened his mouth to speak. The other man in the room, the one with the familiar voice, looked up at him. He recognized him immediately.

The soldier on Treize's shuttle. The one who had brought him the computer, the one he had seen watching him as he got into the limousine.

The soldier made as if to draw a gun. Zechs lunged at him, reaching single-handedly for his own revolver within his coat. His arm connected with the soldier's chest and he collapsed, and Zechs fell with him, pinning him to the floor.

"Treacherous bastard," he growled, pressing the gun into the side of the soldier's head. He squirmed underneath him and Zechs cocked the gun.

Behind them, Odin laughed, watching them amusedly. "Get off him, Marquise," he said, grinning still. "Let him go."

Feeling a confused expression come upon his face, Zechs did. He realized the soldier was laughing too, and he kept his gun fixed on him as he backed away.

The soldier reached into his own coat and pulled something out. Zechs's finger tightened on the trigger. The soldier withdrew a tissue and waved it in front of his face like a white flag, then enthusiastically blew his nose into it.

Not a gun. A tissue. A damned tissue.

"I'm sorry if my cold offends you, Marquise-love," he said, his heavy Liverpudlian accent made even thicker by his congested throat. He tossed the tissue into a nearby wastebasket and rose to his feet. "I believe one of the others on the shuttle gave me this nice little virus. If you have this much of a problem with it, you should take it up with him."

Zechs narrowed his eyes. "What?"

Odin returned to his seat in front of the computer. "Marquise, is there a reason that you tackled one of our top computer analysts?"

"I saw him," Zechs replied, leveling the gun again at the soldier. "He's working for Treize."

"No, Marquise, he's working for me."

Zechs looked at Odin incredulously.

Odin continued. "Marquise, I would like you to meet Rhyn Tolkien, one of the chief designers of the Sagittarius. It was Rhyn who gave it that ridiculous name. Rhyn, this is the infamous Zechs Marquise, also known as the great Prince Milliardo of the Sanq Kingdom."

"We've met," Rhyn said, unfazed by the gun. He pulled out another tissue and blew into it. "I believe Mr. Marquise threatened to…what was it? To put a bullet in my head for my stupidity if I dared address him as 'Lord Alsirae'"— there was an unmistakable note of disdain and mockery of the name in his voice —"ordered us to."

Zechs slowly lowered the gun and looked from Rhyn to Odin. "What the hell is this?"

"Rhyn is one of your fellow traitors to Kushrenada's organization," Odin said. "He was not employed by me as you and a good deal of the others were. Rather, he offered his very life for our cause when our own organization was still in its infancy. About a year ago he asked for the assignment of infiltrating Treize's base, and, as you learned last week, was successfully able to do so."

Zechs studied the soldier in question, who was looking at Odin as a son would a father he greatly revered. "Is he your next ward, your next Heero perhaps?"

Rhyn's knowing eyes darted from Zechs to Odin.

Odin's handsome face became somber, but he was not offended. "No. I never rescued Rhyn from anything, nor did I ever try to become his mentor. He is merely a good soldier, too good to be wasted in a tyrannical military force such as that through which Treize intends to gain power."

Zechs knew this was not the entire truth, that just as it was with the former Gundam pilot Heero Yuy, this young man had some past connection with Odin, and just as it was with Heero, Odin kept the knowledge of those connections strictly limited. He said nothing about it, though. It had never been his custom to ask Odin Lowe his business, and in turn Odin did not ask his.

"Do I still strike you as being terribly stupid, sir?" Rhyn asked, a wide, childish smile illuminating his face. His face was itself still childish, his features those of a younger boy, but his eyes held the solemnity of an assassin. "You seemed to think of me that way on the shuttle."

Zechs could only look at him.

"Acting utterly aloof, naïve even, is one of the factors that so impressed Treize about me. Most of his soldiers he chose for their intelligence, their previous experience, or even their maliciousness, which all seemed to earn his trust in them. He trusted me simply because he thought I was too stupid to betray him."

Zechs was still unable to answer him. He put away the revolver, and after silently berating himself for his rash mistake, he said, "I offer my humblest apologies, then."

Rhyn gave him another smile and turned his cheek toward him. "How about a kiss, then?"

Zechs was unable to control his expression.

Rhyn seemed not to notice. "Your assault on me means I'm doing a good job with Treize. Do you have to act for him, Marquise-love?" he said, rather sincerely this time. "I would imagine that you do some of the time. But even if you do not, Kushrenada trusts you not to betray him. He thinks you owe him too much to go back on him now. That's a direct quote, sir. Yet at the same time, I think he's expecting you to rebel against him before the battle. He doesn't seem to believe that you will align yourself with the enemy, though. He expects you to rebel as a loner." Rhyn shrugged. "The term he used was actually 'rogue,' but it's basically the same thing."

"How do you know all this?"

"My greatly wondrous skills of eavesdropping."

"You've heard him say this? When? To whom?"

"That's the thing I haven't quite learned yet. It seems that he has a strong ally in a man he himself refers to only as 'the General.' I'm sure he does occasionally say the great General's name, but I've yet to hear it."

Odin, obviously having heard this before, resumed what he had been doing on the computer before Zechs's interruption.

"We do know, however," Rhyn continued, "that the general is a very prominent man, very wealthy, and very influential, perhaps to a governmental extent." He paused to blow his nose again.

"This could be the benefactor," Odin said, without taking his eyes from the computer. Rhyn crossed the room and took a seat beside him, and Zechs followed.

"This is Rhyn's most recent contribution to our cause," he told Zechs, gesturing at the monitor, which displayed the contents of a disk. "It appears to be Treize's financial activities over the span of his organization's two-year existence."

"This is why paper records are simpler and easier to conceal," Rhyn said. "Other things will _always_ get mixed up in them, and sorting it all out often makes a person who shouldn't be seeing it in the first place frustrated to the point of carelessness. Paper records are disorganized. And if a situation arises, paper is very easily destroyed. With a computer file, there is always a way to restore what was deleted."

Zechs looked over the file, wondering still what this talk of a benefactor was about.

"Don't just skim over it," Odin advised. "_Read_ it."

He did, as Odin and Rhyn waited in contemplative silence. When at last he leaned back in the chair, there was no longer any question in his mind what they had been talking about.

"Do you see it?' Odin asked calmly, his brow raised.

Zechs nodded. "There is too much going in."

Rhyn, in the midst of another blowing of the nose, smiled.

"Exactly," Odin said. "Too much money is being put into it. This is too much for even a government-ordained military, much less a clandestine organization."

"Are you sure it's all coming from the one person?" Zechs asked.

"I wasn't at first. Even after his supposed death, Treize Krushrenada's estate remained a wealthy one, and all that money disappeared around the time he was a month in his grave."

"It was funneled into a series of religious charities," Zechs said.

"Yes, by Treize himself, or someone acting on his behalf." Odin brought up another file on the computer. "This was the so-called 'series' of religious charities."

Zechs recognized the church in the photograph immediately. "Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows."

Odin nodded. "Abandoned in AC 181, in light of church raids by rebels against the Alliance all over the world. The money of Kushrenada's inherited estate was donated in five separate 'gifts' to the church." He moved the file another page down and again brought up the financial record. "The first ones required no research to find where the money was donated in specific. The Chapel of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows. The Orphanage of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows." His voice took on a mocking tone, ridiculing both the people who had not realized what was happening and Treize's perversion of charity. "The Convent of Our Lady, the Monastery of Our Lady. And then this is the strange one: 'To the Great Hall of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows.' I thought this might be another order of the clergy, some branch of the monasticism even, but this is what I found." He brought up the file on the church and scrolled down until the screen displayed a photograph of a long, high-ceilinged corridor with wide marble floors and frescoes of the saints and angels lining the walls, ending in a painting of the Assumption.

"This?" Zechs asked, for once unable to disguise the incredulity in his voice.

Odin nodded. "It was the smallest donation. He gave $500,000 to the damned hallway." He gave this time to sink in, then continued. "So all the estate disappeared. Perhaps he would have left a small sum behind if he had known about his daughter then. The money was given to an abandoned church — against public knowledge, of course — and the powers that be who preside over such matters — bankers and lawyers, I believe they are called — all failed to realize that the church had been abandoned for fifteen years. There is something rather interesting about the ownership of the church, however." Odin pointed out the paragraph regarding the church's construction. Zechs's eyes fell directly to the name of the man who, in the year AC 62, had commissioned the church to be built.

_Alsirae Trecais._

"He didn't choose the name for its aesthetic value," Odin said. "The fact that Alsirae died in AC 91 didn't seem to matter to those aforementioned powers. With that name, he was able — illegally, of course, but able nonetheless — to filter the money out of the church's funding and into a private investment, and from there it disappears completely."

Zechs nodded. It was the only thing he could do. In all this time, he had never heard, never suspected, had never even _thought_ anything remotely like this, and what struck him the most was not what he had just heard but rather the horrible knowledge of what all this was leading up to.

Somehow, he knew Odin had had just as shocked a reaction to this discovery as he was having, and what finally brought him back around was imagining how colorful Odin's reaction must have been.

"Treize's family was undeniably rich, wealthier even than some monarchies," Odin continued, "but this kind of operation requires one of two things: money, or strong, willing alliances. The counteroffensive was begun on the latter for that eventually does lead to the former, but Treize was one man who wanted, for whatever ungodly reason, to organize a military agency, and to do it with such discretion that the countries in which it was formed were unaware of its existence. He had the money to begin such an endeavor, but nowhere near the amount that would inevitably be required. This is where the benefactor steps in." He removed the disk and inserted a different one. "This is a message that the head of the computer analysts at the base in Spain intercepted from Treize's computer to the man we've recently come to believe is the chief benefactor."

"Would I be correct in assuming the head computer analyst is Heero?" Zechs broke in.

"You would be. The message contains nothing of importance, but the location to which it was sent is rather interesting. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Marquise?"

Zechs leaned closer to the screen. He needed only to read the end of the location line to know what it meant.

He cursed under his breath and turned away from the computer.

"We knew the money had to be coming from an outside source," Odin went on, accustomed now to the knowledge he was presenting Zechs with and therefore able to maintain his signature calm tone. "Some of those who work for him are from wealthy families as well, but in the case of most of those that wealth was depleted during the wars, ruling out that possibility. The next possibility was yet another inheritance. As you know, Zechs, the head of the former Romefeller Foundation, Duke Dermail, did not have many surviving family members at the time shortly before his death. He left a considerable sum to his nephew, and most likely Treize somehow filtered this money to himself."

"He probably donated it to a staircase," Rhyn mumbled humorlessly.

Odin gave a faint smile. "Most of Dermail's estate, however, was left to his granddaughter. It would have required only slightly more effort for Treize to gain his cousin's inheritance, once again by illegally transferring the money from one account to another, but because of Miss Catalonia's current circumstances" — he paused, looking at Zechs, and Zechs nodded — "we can rule out that theory as well. Which means that he has someone outside the organization supporting him."

"And you think this is him?" Zechs asked, motioning toward the computer. "Why?"

"There is another message from Treize thanking him for his most recent contribution," Rhyn said. "I saw it on Treize's computer. I would have made a copy of it but he returned before I was given a chance to. And 'Lord Alsirae' having a connection with a member of the Supreme Earthsphere Council is rather suspicious in itself, wouldn't you say?"

Zechs nodded. "But does he know what Treize is doing? And what was this most recent contribution for?"

"He knows exactly what Treize is doing." Rhyn's youthful voice took an unmistakable note of bitterness. "And the 'contribution' was for another shipment of a reinforced titanium alloy. Treize has ordered another unit of mobile suits to be produced."

"And the rest of the Council, do they know?"

"Most likely not," Odin replied. "Despite the events of the past, most of the Council members genuinely are serving their purpose with the right intentions, and I do believe that they would not allow this." He turned to Zechs. "Miss Noin was invited to attend the conferences the Council held as a member of the Prevention Organization, was she not?"

"She was."

"Whatever her reasons for turning down the offer, it was a wise decision. I'm sure you realize that the number preceding the Council's code in Treize's message means this nameless benefactor is one of the Council's highest members. He would have known exactly where Miss Noin would be at all times, and if ordered to, he would have had the power to have her arrested. God only knows what would have happened to her then."

"She would have been donated to a firing squad," Rhyn muttered, cynically and without any of his former mirth.

Odin nodded in consideration. "That is a possibility."

Zechs suddenly felt nauseated.

"Are you all right, Mr. Marquise?" Rhyn asked, and the concerned yet confused tone of his voice confirmed Zechs's suspicion that he didn't know who Lucrezia was. "You look rather pale."

"I'm fine," he mumbled through clenched teeth. Odin flashed him a solemn, knowing look.

Nothing more was said for some time. Eventually the nausea died down and he was able to breathe again.

"You're expected back in Thessaloníki at dawn, aren't you?" Odin asked Rhyn finally.

"Yes, I'm being put second-in-command for the transportation of the titanium to Germany. It might interest you to know that the fields where the MS are tested belong to Our Lady. It seems Treize is quite taken with the church."

_Of course he is,_ Zechs thought but did not say and he nodded. Odin glanced at him, one eyebrow raised, asking in silence if there was a reason for this, then turned back to Rhyn.

"You'd best be leaving then, hadn't you?" he said.

Rhyn glanced at his watch and sprang to his feet. He said his hurried farewells, obviously a bit chagrined to have lost track of time so badly, and left, stopping to use another tissue halfway through the doorway.

Odin rose from the chair. "Do you wish to be back in Sanq by dawn, Marquise?"

Before he could answer, the door was opened again and Rhyn's head appeared. Looking expectantly at Odin he said, "You will inform Marguerite of this, won't you? I've not had a chance to tell her that I'm leaving."

Odin nodded and waved him out of the doorway. "Of course. I'll tell her."

Rhyn fell against the door, pressing the back of his hand to his forehead in a great melodramatic gesture. "Tell her I love her and that I'll be coming home to her soon," he cried out in the same fashion. "Tell her those Commies can't keep me away from her! Tell her I'm sorry that I couldn't get her a ring but we're in love so it doesn't matter! Tell I miss her and even more than that I miss sleeping with her! Tell her–"

Odin, shaking his head in amusement, rose from the chair and approached the boy. "Out," he said, laughing softly, and closed the door on Rhyn's over-dramatic face.

Zechs flashed Odin a questioning glance.

"Marguerite is a close friend of his, currently stationed in Spain. He won't have the opportunity to inform her of his mission in Germany. As for his final comments, he has quite a flare for melodrama. Should you be returning before dawn as well?"

"Preferably. Relena will be worried if I am not there."

Odin removed the disk from the computer and dropped it into a locked drawer below the desk. His hand grazed a stack of papers as he did this, and underneath the stack was revealed a black-and-white photograph from a newspaper clipping. Zechs carefully picked up the picture, examined it will all the curiosity of a child.

The clipping was old, brittle and slightly yellowed with age. The photograph displayed only a close-up of woman's face as she turned to look at something behind her. She was beautiful, this woman, at first glance undeniably of Asian descent, with smooth, high cheeks and glossy, dark, almond-shaped eyes. A smile played at the corners of her mouth, and somehow Zechs thoughts that this slight smile was always there, that she could die with that same smile gracing her lips.

The name below the photograph read, in the Roman alphabet rather than an Oriental language, Hanasaki Sakura. It seemed vaguely familiar to him.

"Who is she?" he asked Odin, holding the photograph up.

Odin turned and for one brief moment his eyes widened at seeing Zechs with the picture. Then the angry expression on his face faded and, in the manner of a father plucking an object out of an infant's fist, he took the clipping from Zechs's hand.

"Who she is," he said, placing the photograph in the same locked drawer, "or rather, who she _was_, is of little consequence to you, Marquise."

"Her name seems familiar."

Odin regarded him with interest. "Does it? It wouldn't to many people, not now, at least. Of course in other parts of the world there are still some who even now pray for her soul, but she is already being forgotten."

"Not by you, obviously."

Odin smiled faintly. "No. Not by me. But would you find it hard to believe, Marquise, that there are people, on Earth and in space, who have to think about it before they remember who King Peacecraft was?"

Zechs considered this for a moment. "No," he said finally. "I would not."

"They say we choose our joys and sorrows," Odin mused, resuming his seat in the chair across from Zechs. "If that is true, then likewise we choose our glories and our defeats. The woman in the picture, Sakura, accomplished more by way of revolution than any of the old organizations did, yet let me assure you, Marquise, her name will never be written into a history book. Your father was one of the greatest advocates of peace our times have ever seen, but the name Dekim Barton will be remembered long after his has been forgotten. Do you understand what I'm saying, Marquise?"

Zechs could only nod.

"Good. You looked like you knew something when Rhyn mentioned Treize's fascination with the church. Would you care to elaborate?"

"When the church was supposedly abandoned–"

"The Alliance raid."

"Yes. His parents were there when it happened, and they were two of the first casualties."

"I suspected as much," Odin said, nodding. "But satisfy my curiosity, Prince, since you knew him and his family personally, how did he deal with their murder?"

He found himself wanting, as though he did still have some loyalty to Treize, to claim he had been at Lake Victoria at the time, but he could not. "He received the news well," he said, "then he took one of the horses out and didn't return until the next morning. He was drunk and looked as if he had spent the entire night crying."

"Ah, then he did once have a soul." He paused. "If you want to be at the palace before dawn, you should leave now."

Zechs nodded and stood.

"Be careful in Thessaloníki," Odin advised as Zechs started for the door. "Treize's suspicions have been raised over something. Rhyn is smart enough and he should be all right, but he doesn't have your experience. He may have to leave the country soon. You would do well to keep that in mind, Prince."

He cast Odin a solemn glance and left.

His footsteps echoed in the corridor behind him, hollow, strangely inducive of thoughts of approaching death.

He thought of what Odin had said about Treize's suspicions, of what Rhyn said about a donation to a firing squad in Germany. He thought of Lucrezia and the mission offer she had turned down. He thought of the woman in the picture, and of Odin's face when he had realized that Zechs had seen it.

_We choose our glories and our defeats. _

_How true._

He feared his defeat had already been chosen for him.

**III**

"_Mr. Marquise?"_

_He turned in the direction of the voice. He could not see the man's face from where he stood in the darkness of the hangar, but he immediately identified the back-lit silhouette leaning in the doorway as Odin Lowe. _

"_Yes?"_

_Odin stepped across the threshold. "I had a feeling I would find you here. You had a special attachment to this one, didn't you?" He gestured at the crimson monolith before them, which lay almost completely in the shadows. Its emerald eyes seemed to glow as if with an inner fire in the dim light shed upon it from the open doorway. _

_Zechs nodded. _

"_Do you still believe that Treize intended you to pilot it from the beginning?"_

"_Yes. Heero Yuy was merely a toy to him, an experiment with its capabilities."_

"_What makes you so sure that you were not one as well?"_

_He smiled. "You're forgetting he was once my friend."_

"_No, I haven't," Odin replied calmly. "Which is why I agree with you. Tell me, did Treize ever torture insects when he was a child?"_

"_Not to my knowledge."_

_Odin joined him at the foot of the Gundam. "They say the reconstruction should take no longer than another two weeks. Arrangements have already been made for its transportation and storage."_

_Again, he nodded. _

"_What do you think of it, Prince? Do you find it satisfying?"_

_His eyes went over the Gundam again. "More than satisfying," he said. "They truly have done excellent work." He paused for a while, considering. "I would like to make one request, however."_

"_And that would be?" _

"_I would like to redesign the system myself."_

_Odin grinned his signature devil's smile. "Very well, if that's what you want." The expression in his eyes silently conveyed that he understood why Zechs wanted to rebuild the system unassisted; those eyes were warning him to be careful when he did it._

_At last, they left the hangar. The Epyon watched after them with its cold, soulless green eyes._

He lay atop the elegant bed, still fully clothed, one hand covering his closed blue eyes. The covers were rumpled beneath him from his earlier attempt to sleep. He had arrived back at the palace an hour before the sun rose, awakening no one, and had tried to fall asleep, only to find that his mind was too occupied to allow such a thing.

The half-empty wine bottle sat on the dresser beside the bed. He opened his eyes and stared at it, then finally plucked it from the dresser and gulped another couple inches of it down. He had the strange thought that Treize would laugh at him if he were to see him in this state, that Odin would be amused and at the same time disappointed. And Lucrezia, if she were to see him like this, how would she react? He did not even need to wonder; she _had_ seen him like this, and if she were here she would do as she always did: she would watch him silently, her silent violet eyes bleeding silent tears, as if she were mourning his death.

This thought sobered him. He rose from the bed, went to the window. The world beyond the palace was cold and gray, as though the sun no longer found the world worthy of its light and was concealing itself behind the thick cover of clouds.

_I would like to redesign the system myself_.

He stepped back from the window. In all honesty he had not thought about that brief conversation — had not even thought about the thing it regarded — in months, and, still drunken but thinking clearly enough now, he supposed it was the combination of alcohol and sleeplessness that had brought it to memory.

Along with Zechs's battered, comatose body, Odin Lowe had ordered the remains of the Epyon to be recovered, and shortly after Zechs had agreed to join the counteroffensive, Odin led him to the hangar that held the gundanium corpse. He reminded Zechs of what was happening outside of the kingdom and what it could escalate into, then asked him one simple question.

Zechs's answer had been 'yes.'

Thus the reconstruction of the Gundam had begun. It had been finished almost a year ago, and in the months before he had resurfaced as a preventer, Zechs had made his own contribution to the reconstruction effort. Enough of the components of the cockpit system had survived to give him a basis for the new version, and he had only to employ his knowledge of the Zero system to restore it to what it originally was. But that was not entirely true, was it? He had restored the system and then enhanced it, increasing every possible level to the highest extreme that a human being could endure. Even the slightest additional increase would result in nothing less than death.

It was only now that he was able to admit to himself that he had toyed with the idea of making that additional increase, of giving the system the strength to override his mind when the time came again for him to fight even if it killed him in the process. The prospect of death had never disturbed him, and in those days it had even appealed to him. After all, was he not supposed to be dead? And who would care if he died again? Would there be any to mourn at his grave? No, of course there would not be. To all those who had genuinely cared for him he was already dead, and of the matter of graves, there was already one with his name engraved above it just outside the Sanq Kingdom, side-by-side with the empty grave of Treize Kushrenada. He had had no true comrades as a soldier, only allies, and for all he had known then the only one he had really ever cared about was dead too, so what did it matter if he gave life in battle? Perhaps that was the seduction of death, that no one would care, that he could slip easily and silently out of existence into whatever awaited him beyond and leave nothing behind.

He had considered it, had even come close to doing it, but in the end he did not. He did not regret his decision, but neither did he regret enhancing the system as much as he had. The only thing he did regret was never testing the new system.

The Epyon was no longer in his possession. Soon after its completion the Gundam was sent to a private hangar in Antarctica that Odin had somehow gained use of. He had been told that a man by the name of Xing Yuan-Chen had been placed in charge of the Gundam's transportation, and once, months ago now, he had considered finding a way to contact this man to arrange for it to be returned to him.

Zechs returned to the bed. He took another long, thoughtful glance at the wine, but made no move toward it. He was beginning to feel sick.

He was finally able to sleep but only for a few minutes, for the moment he began to fall into a deeper sleep there came a fierce knocking on the suite's door, carrying through the silence of the parlor into the bedroom.

He groaned softly and without even thinking decided to ignore it.

Sleep again. The beginning of a dream, two violet eyes staring into his. The glimmer of silver in the candlelight. Click click of the beads. Soft, insistent fingertips pressing the crucifix into his hand. _My prince, please_. A whispered prayer.

A hand on his shoulder. "Milliardo?"

A slurred, muffled response.

"Milliardo, wake up." His sister's voice uttering a curse. "You're drunk, aren't you?"

He blinked; the dream faded. His eyes opened easily enough, assaulted only by the light that managed to penetrate the clouds, and he saw her beside him, not Luca but his sister, looking worriedly from him to the bottle of wine and back to him again.

He looked up at her and mustered a slight smile and a quiet laugh. "I'm not drunk, Relena. I've only consumed half of that bottle. If it were that easy to lapse from sobriety I would be a much happier man." He watched as the expression on her face darkened. "However, I was well on my way to becoming drunk before I fell asleep. Were you hoping to join me, my dear sister?"

"You left again last night, didn't you?" she asked. She seemed as if she were trying to sound angry but her fear for him gave her voice a wild tremor.

He sat up on the bed beside her. He knew her question required no answer, therefore he made no attempt to give one. "Where do you go?" she pressed, her voice much softer now, so resembling the voice of the innocent Relena Darlian that he momentarily wished for deafness. "When you leave here in the middle of the night, where do you go, Milliardo?"

"To Hell," he mumbled. This was not entirely true; he had not been to Hell — which the devil had relocated to the Grecian peninsula of Thessaloníki — in a few days, and now he supposed that Vólos was only Purgatory.

"You don't have to be so sarcastic." She turned away from him, the expression on her face even more hurt than the sound of her voice. If earlier she had sounded like the sweet, untainted princess she had been only a year ago, she now sounded like the child he had once known her as, nothing more now than a child, not a Queen or even a princess but a lost, dejected little girl.

Any lingering effect that remained from the wine faded at her words.

He touched her shoulder. "Where I go, Princess, is not something I would like to talk about or that you would like to hear," he said gently.

She looked at him. There were tears in her eyes, he saw immediately, and her chin trembled violently. Two large tears spilled over onto her cheeks. "You're wrong," she said. Her shoulders shook as she stifled a sob. "If I didn't want to hear it, I wouldn't have asked."

Her words cut through him like a blade through the thin flesh of a woman's throat. His hand faltered from her shoulder as two more tears fell onto it.

"You don't have to tell me," she continued. "I already know."

He blinked. "What?"

He had not noticed the folded letter in her hand until now. Still looking directly into his eyes she held it up, then angrily she thrust it into his hands. "This message was delivered to the palace this morning. I was told to give it to you."

He unfolded the letter.

Relena rose from the bed and before he could read even one word of the message she said, "You're to go the Thessaloníki at 1400 this afternoon. A plane will be waiting for you in Katerini. Despite the scheduled time, you are to leave for the peninsula as soon as possible, and you are to be sure you aren't followed out of Sanq." She studied the questioning expression on his face. "I read it, Milliardo. Do you really think I'm that naïve? The messenger delivered it directly to me and I read the damned thing. Does that surprise you so much, Milliardo?"

The bitterness in her voice pierced him, and he found he could no longer meet her eyes.

She returned to the bed, stood before him in dominance like the queen that she was. "What are you doing in Thessaloníki, Milliardo? Is this what you returned to Earth for?" Now she did sob, absently wiping the tears away with the back of one gloved hand.

"Yes," he told her honestly. He took her hand and kissed the back of it. "That's all I can tell you, Princess."

"What's happening there?" she continued. Such painful desperation. "I am not an imbecile, Milliardo, and I am not a child any longer. I know something is happening there. Every ruler of every province surrounding the city knows it. The night you came here, the very moment I saw you, I suspected you somehow knew about it too. Not preventer business, is it? Not preventer but personal business. What's happening there?"

He did not answer her. She stared at him angrily for several minutes, then collapsed before him, sobbing loudly.

"There is something else," she said finally, her anger seeming to dissipate. "This morning I…"

He took one of her slender hands. "What is it, Relena?"

Her eyes, red and shot with tears, met his. "A few minutes ago I received a call dispatched from a hospital on Mars. Something's happened…Miss Noin was admitted yesterday–"

He felt his stoic jaw become unhinged as a shudder contorted his body.

"I've already arranged for a shuttle to take you there…the doctor I spoke with didn't tell me–"

He pushed away from her and leapt from the bed. Turning back, the sickness he had felt earlier now magnified, he tried to say something to her, tried to speak and found himself utterly unable to.

_Lucrezia…please God—_

He turned and fled the room.

**Author's Notes**: This chapter marks an increase in Yuan-Chen's appearances. Despite how serious he can be at times, he is really a rather amusing character, as exemplified by his inclusion of several languages in his instructions despite their relevance to the actual situation. The red-haired woman who is so curt with Heero appears again later, so don't forget her just yet.

Rhyn makes his first appearance as himself in this chapter. For those of you who are wondering, as I've received a few comments regarding this, I took his first name from the bird after hearing about someone else who was named after it and just played with the spelling. Surnames always take me forever to create, so in the interest of time when I was writing Ballad I literally took the surname of author of the first book I saw above my bed in my room. I hadn't originally meant to keep that one, but it kind of stuck after a while. Rhyn has been terribly fun to write, so much so that I could not resist making him a bigger character in Remnants. I listened to the Beatles' music quite often when I was writing Ballad, so one might blame that for Rhyn's odd personality.

As a brief note regarding the reappearance of the Epyon . . . what can I say? It was my favorite Gundam. I couldn't resist.


	8. Chapter Seven

_Chapter Seven_

**I**

The private shuttle touched down on Mars an eternity after he had boarded it. He felt a brief dizziness as he entered the atmosphere, so much different from that of the Earth, but once his senses readjusted to the Martian pressure the dull ache in his head came not from the new compression but from his fear. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before, different even from the terror he had experienced the night his parents died, and for the first time he found himself regretting he had ever become involved with the counteroffensive. His involvement was necessary, it seemed, but perhaps if he had never met Odin Lowe and agreed to work on this project this (whatever it was; he still had not been informed on that matter) would not have happened to Lucrezia.

Of course it wouldn't have happened, he told himself. If it were not for Odin Lowe and the counteroffensive and the man who called himself Alsirae Trecais but was once known to the world as Treize Kushrenada and his rising imperialism, he would never have left Lucrezia and she would be perfectly fine right now. And he really hadn't had to take on this mission — Odin and his growing army would either conquer or defeat Treize with or without him and if they fell and Treize took over, he and Lucrezia could have disappeared again, slipped away into the night and never returned. It was possible. They had done it immediately following the Mariemaia incident, and though at first it had been on Relena's orders, there had been a time when even Relena had not known their whereabouts, or Midii Une for that matter. There had been only the two of them for a while and they could easily return to that life. He was sure Lucrezia would even want to.

He sat back in the seat at the front of the shuttle's cab, which was empty save for himself, thinking back on those days. They had been tainted, yes, for even then Zechs had known about the new war that would arise, but he had been able to put all that in the back of his mind. Indeed, there had been entire days when he gave it not so much as a single thought. Not much _had _been on his mind then, nothing from his past or the future that awaited him. All that had mattered to him then was the present, and, of course, Lucrezia. Just as she always had, though (and as he realized this, the thought shamed him) he could only remember letting her know that twice. She was the real reason behind almost everything he had done after breaking away from OZ — everything he had not done for the sake of revenge for the deaths of his parents, he had done with Lucrezia in mind. When first approached by the late Quinze, Zechs had had no intention whatsoever of joining the White Fang, but then an image of her face had floated up behind his eyes and he had heard her words about all wars being meaningless, and he had known what he had to do. He had misled Quinze and the rest of the rebel citizens of the colonies, as well as the people of Earth and space, and he had threatened the complete destruction of the Earth, but not just to attain the world for which his father had died striving . The philosophy of the Peacecrafts _had_ been a part of the reason, but behind it all had been Lucrezia and her hatred of warfare, and the memory of the night (_so many years ago now_) he had told her he would do anything to let her see a world without war and incessant bloodshed, and the even stronger the memory of how very much he had meant those words. He had staged the war for the sake of peace, but also for her and her desire to see an end to warfare. He had battled each of the Gundam pilots and if necessary he would have killed one of them to show both the colonies and the Earth even further how horrible war was, but he refrained from that one last murder because it would have hurt her too deeply. He had offered his life in place of all those who would be killed in battles to come for her happiness. And in the end, as the Epyon was ripped apart by its own force all around him, his last thoughts had been with her. Always with her.

When Relena had come to him when he led the White Fang, he had considered telling her the truth about what he was doing. He could have sent Quinze and Dorothy away long enough to explain to her what his true intentions were and how it was the only way to put an end to the fighting. If he thought it would help her to comprehend what he meant to do, he could have told her about his feelings for Lucrezia and how she affected his decisions. Relena, because of what she felt for Heero, would have understood then. She hadn't been able to see what he was doing when it was explained to her in the terms of destruction and violence, but when matters of the heart were brought into it, her eyes were suddenly opened. Zechs supposed it was her love of romance that would be both her inspiration and her downfall, though he could not explain why he thought this.

But he did not think it would have been right to bring how he felt about Lucrezia into that long-ago confrontation with his sister, and now he doubted he really _could _have explained that to Relena. Not when even Lucrezia had been left in the dark as to why he had joined White Fang, left alone in her pain and her damnable longing for him.

At first when they had left Earth that last time after the fall of Mariemaia, not a word had been spoken about that war or where Zechs had been for the year he was supposedly dead, but eventually he had, in his perpetual weakness, broken and told her everything. He left out all that had happened to him following the self-destruction of the Epyon up to his reemergence as a preventer, of course, but everything before those events he made known to her. He told her why he accepted Quinze's proposition, why he signed for the demolition of the Earth even when he wasn't going to let it come to such an extreme. He even told her how he had overestimated himself and had not been strong enough to control the Epyon's system during his battle with Heero (whom, he told her, had known of his intentions almost from the beginning). And after all that was said, he explained to her why he had done these things. She listened silently throughout his grim narrative, nodding occasionally but holding her tongue. He was only able to meet her eyes once he had finished and he found no expression there, and for a moment he thought she was going to strike him.

Her eyes had brightened then, and her lower lip trembled slightly. "Zechs, I'm sorry," she said, and before he could ask her what she could possibly be sorry for she had leaned against him and pressed her lips to his.

That had begun their relationship, distant as it was now. Nothing more needed to have been spoken regarding how they felt about each other; they fell into this new kind of relationship just as quickly and easily as they had sometimes fallen into a kiss all those years ago at Lake Victoria — though it had never progressed past a kiss in those days; that was something new — and for a while, at least, their lives had been almost perfect. The role in the terra-forming project was not underway yet and they still had some time before they had to report for duty; if there had been any other notifications regarding the project they had not received them, as even Relena had had trouble locating them. There had been one message from Une — something about a potential mission — but they had ignored it.

Lucrezia had asked him once what he had done for the one year he was supposed to be in the grave, to which he had replied, "I was dead, Luca."

She had considered this for a few minutes. When she spoke again she had dropped the subject of his death, and she never asked him about it again. "You don't have to call me that anymore."

He had smiled — how strange a true smile felt upon his face — and had known that she was telling him she would never fight as a soldier again. Only he knew why, for their final years at Victoria, her first name had been registered as Lucrezia but her instructors and fellow cadets alike had called her either by her last name or Luca.

Sitting alone in the shuttle, he smiled again at these memories, then immediately berated himself for doing so when right at that very moment, Lucrezia was lying in a hospital with injuries everyone refused to tell him about.

The door at the head of the cab opened and a man in a white lab-coat poked his head through the portal. "Mr. Marquise?"

Zechs nodded.

"Please come with me, sir," the man, perhaps a physician, said, then exited the shuttle by way of the cockpit. Zechs followed, eager to get to the hospital yet dreading every step at the same time.

"I'm Dr. Weisen," the man said after they had crossed half the hangar, confirming Zechs's suspicion. They were practically running but to Zechs it seemed they were going too slowly. "I'm one of Miss Noin's physicians."

Zechs didn't bother with the introductions or formalities. "What's happened to her?"

"Here is hardly the place for me to explain it," the doctor said, and he began to ramble — more to himself than to Zechs — about something that made absolutely no sense to him. After a minute or so Zechs realized that Weisen must have recognized him as Milliardo Peacecraft and, knowing who his sister was, he was talking about some problem in the direction of funds to medical facilities in space.

Zechs thought he could shoot the man. He didn't care about funding for hospitals on the colonies or new construction there or _whatever_ Weisen was babbling over. The only thing he cared about was getting to Lucrezia. What kept him from pulling the gun from its holster beneath his overcoat was the disdainful knowledge that if he shot him, it would take him even longer to find her.

The hospital was near the port where the shuttle had landed and it took them only a few minutes to reach it, but for Zechs every one of those minutes seemed more like an hour. They thankfully were not halted at either the main entrance or the one on the fourth floor. He expected to be led directly to Lucrezia's room but instead, once the had reached the second corridor of the fourth floor, Dr. Weisen ushered him into a small white room across from the nurses' station. The room was not meant for patients, Zechs saw as he stepped inside. It was furnished with an elegant oak desk at its head, in front of a window providing a placid view of the Earth. There was a row of gray padded chairs against the eastern wall — about ten of them in all — and without speaking Weisen gestured for him to pull one up to the desk.

The heavy door fell shut behind him and when he heard the solid metallic click of its lock mechanism automatically engaging, Zechs understood what was going on. They had not sent a mere escort to bring him to the hospital — they had sent one of the doctors who had seen Lucrezia, and that alone should have told him something. The doctor had refused to answer Zechs's question about Lucrezia and tried to steer him onto another subject. And now, rather than being taken to her, he had been brought here, to this room with its quaint little row of chairs and its quaint little desk and its quaint window and the Earth beyond. This was a counseling room, he realized, where families of patients were brought to be told their loved one had died. And if he was here and Lucrezia was nowhere in sight . . .

"Mr. Marquise, would you please sit down?" Weisen said for the second time, bringing Zechs out of his grim revelation. He sounded too cheery for the news he was about to deliver, and unconsciously Zechs's hand found the butt of the gun.

"Tell me what happened to her," he growled thickly. Weisen, whom he already knew remembered him under the Peacecraft name, now seemed to also remember his final battle as Milliardo and what he was prone to do when he lost his mind (Zechs thought the Epyon's system might come in handy right about now), for, although he was surely used to angry reactions, he jumped back in his chair.

"Sir, if you'll please just sit down, I'll be happy to explain."

_I'm sure you will_, Zechs thought, reaching to pull up a chair. _After doing this for so many years you probably get off on it._

"Miss Noin was brought to us," Weisen began when Zechs was seated, "by two young men calling themselves Triton Bloom and Chang Wufei and a woman by the name of Sally Po. These three individuals are part of the Prevention Organization, are they not?"

_Not Trowa_, Zechs thought, but he nodded anyway.

"They were returning to Mars from a mission on the L3 colony when, according to them, Miss Noin began to complain of severe pain in the lower abdominal area."

Zechs shifted uneasily in the chair, wishing the doctor would hurry up and tell him and get it over with.

Weisen regarded him thoughtfully. "Are you all right, Mr. Marquise?"

"No," Zechs replied bitterly. "Go on."

Weisen did. "One of them — Miss Po, I think it was — realized that Miss Noin was bleeding but by this time she —Miss Noin, I mean— had become unresponsive."

Zechs's breath caught and he felt his heart sink to his knees. Behind the desk Dr. Weisen continued the recount of events as explained to him by Sally Po, but Zechs didn't hear a word of it. Lower abdominal pain, followed by bleeding, often then followed by a lapse of consciousness . . . they were symptoms he had seen and heard of too many times while living on this crimson planet, symptoms of a thing no one had bargained for when they had come to the Martian colony. Ever since the first livable space colony had been established many of the inhabitants had suffered some kind of physical effect or another. The biggest problem for those colonies, however, those man-made colonies with their controlled environments, had been a decline of fertility in women, and for those who did manage to get pregnant those first few years, the major concern had been birth defects in their children. The Mars colony, despite attempts at developing a manageable environment, was still unstable, and its women had something more to worry about aside from infertility and harsh pregnancies.

There had been an unnerving increase in the risk of cancer among both sexes during the first month of the development of the colony, back when it was still referred to as the 'terra-forming project.' Lung cancer seemed to be the most occurring form in men, and Zechs and Lucrezia had gone through a brief scare when Zechs had begun coughing persistently. That had turned out to be nothing more than a more advanced form of the common cold, but many others had not been so lucky.

Cancer of the lung had afflicted members of both genders, but in females the most prominent form had been uterine cancer. It began quickly and spread faster than the Earth strain, and all too often cases that were not discovered within the first five to six months turned fatal. He had been afraid for Lucrezia then, but he had failed to realize just how horrible the consequences of her move to the planet with him could be until the incident at the base. One of the other members of the Prevention Organization — a girl not very much younger than Lucrezia — had begun to feel sick after spending most of the day manning the computers and had been allowed to rest in one of the lounges scattered throughout the building. Lucrezia had stayed with her; she almost always looked after them when they became ill at the base, and if she had not felt called to become a soldier, Zechs thought she would have been excellent in a medical profession. About an hour after the girl had been temporarily relieved from duty there had been a call for assistance in the area of the base where he was, and when Zechs reported he found Lucrezia trying to calm the girl, who was crying hysterically and clutching at her stomach. She had been bleeding too, he had seen: blood had been gushing down her legs, soaking through the pants of her uniform in thin scarlet streams. They had all known immediately what was wrong with her. She had lost consciousness while more assistance was being summoned and Lucrezia, along with another member of the organization, had had to carry her out to the transport vehicle that had been called, and when she passed Zechs their eyes had met and he had been overcome by a sick realization. She was not immune to this disease, his Lucrezia — she was just as at risk as all those other women who had been diagnosed with it. Just because he knew her, just because she was more than a name on a piece of paper and a statistic to him, just because he _loved _her, did not make her immune. The girl had lived, though her uterus had been surgically removed. For a while afterward Zechs had tried to convince Lucrezia to let him take her back to Earth, but she refused.

That had happened months ago now, and within those months the number of colonists diagnosed with cancer had been greatly reduced. The human body was unmatched in its ability to adapt, Zechs believed, both to new situations and new environments. He had been convinced of this when he awoke to find himself alive and intact after the self-detonation of the Epyon. The people on Mars, just as the people of the colonies before them, had adapted to the still rather unstable environment, and within the past months there had been only five cases of cancer in any form.

_Six now_, Zechs thought, and he wished not for the relieving disguise of his mask but to feel the comforting weight of the detonation switch of his Gundam, the detonation switch of anything, even a match and a plastic explosive would work. He had never felt a greater desire for destruction than he did now.

"Mr. Marquise, are you listening?"

Zechs shook his head quickly, clearing the thoughts that threatened to invade his mind if it became idle: _Lucrezia diagnosed…Lucrezia dead…_

"How bad off is she?" he asked, swallowing the lump that had formed in the back of his throat.

Weisen held up a hand. "I'm getting to that. As I was saying, Miss Noin passed out while they were entering the atmosphere. She was brought here immediately and at first we thought . . .I assume you're aware of some of the reproductive complications in women on this colony?"

_Here it comes_, he thought. He nodded gravely.

"At first we suspected an advanced case of uterine cancer. We were ready to make the official diagnosis but we were waiting on her chemical tests to finish in the lab. We didn't think we were going to find anything new on them but we had to be sure. She–"

"Wait," Zechs broke in, feeling the stirring of some foolish hope. "Are you saying she _doesn't _have cancer?"

"It's not cancer," Weisen confirmed, with a smile that for once Zechs found justified. "Quite the contrary. Miss Noin regained consciousness shortly before we received the results. She was coherent, surprisingly, scared to death but intelligible at least, and she asked us to send for you."

"_Thank God_," he whispered under his breath, and waited for the doctor to continue.

"The test results confirmed our second theory. It was almost a spontaneous natural abortion but we got her and she was stabilized in time . . .there's still a chance of complications further on, but for now everything appears to be fine." Zechs looked at the doctor, letting this sink in and at the same time disbelieving it. He was not aware that his mouth was open and his usually narrowed eyes were wide in shock.

"We're still unsure what caused the . . .the near-miscarriage, if you will, but we think it was brought on by frequent exposure to conflicting environments. She really–"

"'Near-miscarriage?' You mean she's…" His words trailed off, giving way to his stunned silence.

"Yes, Miss Noin is pregnant."

He sprang to his feet, sending the chair toppling to the floor, and slammed his hands into the desk. "Take me to her."

Weisen, still smiling, rose from the desk and stepped into the hall, motioning unnecessarily for Zechs to follow. "This way, sir," he said, and he led him past the nurses' station to a more dimly lit corridor that ended with the entrance to the hospital's eastern wing.

"Would I be right in assuming that you're the father?" Weisen asked once they had reached the wing.

"Yes." There could be no question about that. "How far along is she?"

"Not quite two months. There are a few things I should probably mention to you before you see her."

"What?"

"I'm not going to ask details of any of the prevention missions — that's not any of my business. But this one she's currently on, is there any way she could be replaced?"

"You would have to consult the head of the organization on that. Why?"

"She really shouldn't be traveling from colony to colony in her condition. The conception, the carrying, and the delivery of a child on this planet would be difficult enough with its environment, but constantly changing environments isn't exactly a wise decision, either. She almost lost the child by doing that. If there is any way she can be given a less strenuous job in the organization, something that would not require an extreme amount of effort or travel, it must be considered."

"So you're saying she has to have the child on Mars."

Weisen shook his head. "It doesn't matter where she has the baby, at least not primarily, it's that she stay in one place until she has it. If she keeps up with this constant jumping from colony to colony, I can't promise you that the next time she goes from a stable environment to one like this, she won't lose the baby."

"And how good are the child's chances of surviving here?"

Weisen sighed. "Miss Noin has lived most of her life on Earth, and even the time she has spent in space hasn't fully prepared her body for living here. She's still adjusting to Mars physically. So are all the others here. While almost the entire population of this colony is either part of the Prevention Organization or one affiliated with it, a few of the women who came here were pregnant, were they not?"

Zechs nodded.

"This colony has only been in existence for eight months. All of those who came here while with child have given birth now except for three. Mr. Marquise, do you know how many of those babies lived?"

He shook his head. This was not a statistic he had ever been in a situation that required him to know, and — though he had not fully realized it until now — ever since his relationship with Lucrezia had branched into the physical sense, he had avoided knowledge of it.

"Two," Dr. Weisen replied, the merry sparkle gone from his eyes and the smile gone from his face. "There was only one case of stillbirth, but the others — all except for those two — died within days of being born. This isn't to say that it will always be like this. This is how it was when the other colonies were first constructed, and the people there eventually did adjust to their environment and now their pregnancies are just as normal as those on Earth. With Mars's atmosphere, even the so-called 'controlled' one of this colony, it may take a bit longer for those natural physical adjustments to be made, but it will happen." He paused. "Miss Noin is an exceptionally strong woman, Mr. Marquise, both physically and emotionally. I had the fortunate opportunity to talk to her when she regained consciousness and the very least I can say is that she can withstand almost anything life throws at her. There's a good chance — a _very _good chance, Mr. Marquise — that she'll be perfectly fine and when the baby comes, that it will be perfectly fine, too."

"But you can't make any promises," Zechs said, knowing what the doctor was getting at.

"I wish I could, but you're right on that."

Zechs considered this for a minute as they reached the end of the first corridor of the east wing, then he knew what he had to do. "Doctor," he said, "if she had the baby on Earth what would its chances be then?"

"Unless some complication arises further on in the pregnancy, I see no reason why the child shouldn't be perfectly all right. The other colonies are stable now, but the Earth is still the best place for a baby to be born in, and a lot of women still go there when their due date is near."

"But what about the change in atmosphere? You said she could lose the baby the next time she was exposed to another atmosphere."

"No, Mr. Marquise, I said the next time she goes from a stable atmosphere to an unstable one. And the Earth still has the most stable atmosphere, because, I think, it's the only natural one. Humans can only come so close to what God created." He paused again. "I think taking Miss Noin to Earth is a wise idea, Mr. Marquise. Will the shuttle you arrived on still be waiting or was it to be sent back after delivering you?"

"It's here as long as I say it is. When can she leave?"

"We need to keep her for observation a while longer but if all remains the same, she can go tomorrow evening."

Zechs grunted an acknowledgement.

Both the doctor and the former soldier were silent as they came to the end of the hall. There was only one room the last ten yards of the corridor, and when Weisen did not turn toward the elevator Zechs knew this room was Lucrezia's. Weisen eased the door open, poked his head through in the same manner as he had the door on the shuttle. "Miss Noin?" he called into the room, apparently seeing if she was still awake.

"Yes?" The reply was too thin, too weak, to be hers, but Zechs recognized her voice and shuddered at the broken sound of it.

"You have a visitor," Weisen said, and he motioned for Zechs to go into the room.

"Zechs?"

"It's me, Lucrezia." He stepped through the doorway. He could not see her across the rather large, mostly empty room, could only identify her as a spot of dark violet hair against the white sheets.

He started toward her as Weisen watched them, slowly, calmly at first, don't alarm her, don't let her know how worried you were, don't let either of them know—

_Oh, fuck that_, he thought, and he went to her.

"Zechs," she said again when she saw him, and when he leaned down to her she wrapped her arms — how _weak _they were — about his broad shoulders. She let out a single gasping sob when he kissed her forehead, and when he pulled away from her he saw that she was crying.

"What is it, Lucrezia?" he asked, settling into the chair at her bedside without taking his eyes from her and moving it closer to her bed. "What's wrong?"

She offered him a shaky smile and wiped at the tears with the back of her hand. "Forgive me, Zechs," she said, and sobbed again.

He blinked, astounded. "For what?"

"I was half-convinced you wouldn't come. Forgive me."

He shook his head, more disgusted with himself than he had ever been for doing this to her, and took her slender hand in his. "I'm the one who should be asking for forgiveness, not you, Lucrezia. I went to Earth and left you here even after you begged me not to, I…" He swallowed. He had never been good at this kind of thing, and how Lucrezia could tolerate his inexperience in these matters was beyond him. "I hurt you, Lucrezia," he said finally. "I'm sorry."

She placed her free hand on the side of his face, guiding it to hers, and when their eyes were only inches apart she kissed him. "I love you," she said when the kiss ended, and his response was another kiss, longer and deeper this time, intense enough to make him wish it were not a hospital bed on which she was lying. She put a hand to his chest, stopping him before the kiss could become something more.

"Did Dr. Weisen tell you?" she asked, placing a hand over her abdomen, which was still flat now but in a few months would be round and swollen with his child.

Zechs nodded solemnly.

"I asked him to," she admitted, not quite meeting his eyes any longer. "I thought it might be best if you heard it from him first."

He opened his mouth to ask why, then stopped himself. Did he really need to ask? No, of course not. She had asked the doctor to inform him of her pregnancy because she had not wanted to see his reaction.

_My God_, he thought, momentarily tightening his grip on her hand, _what have I done to her?_

"I'm so sorry about this, Zechs," she continued. "I never meant for this to happen. I never meant to burden you like this. I'm s–"

He silenced her with another kiss. It was the only thing he could do. He was still too stunned by what he had just found out and too shamed by her fear of him to speak.

Her crying eventually subsided. She gave a disgusted scowl as she wiped the last tears from her face. She had always hated to cry, but even more than that she hated for him to see her do it.

"It's all right, Luca," he tried to assure her, silently damning his inability to say anything of importance to her.

She cast him a hard glance. "Is it really?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not even sure myself." She paused, looked away for a moment. "I got your message," she said finally. "I didn't read it. Sally found it and I asked her to delete it." Another pause, another decision of brutal honesty. "I was so angry with you then."

"As you had every right to be." He watched the slight, surprised flinch of her eyes. "And now?"

She looked away from him again, and this was sufficient for an answer. When she returned her eyes to his, her gaze was steady, measured, calculated as though it required some amount of effort for her to maintain it.

It probably did.

"I still am," she said quietly. "Not as much as before, but…"

"I'm sorry, Luca."

"So am I." Her face softened. "How have you been, Zechs?"

"I must admit I've been in better circumstances." He offered her a slight smile and kissed the back of her hand. A peace offering. "I think the more important question is how you've been, Luca. How do you feel?"

Another smile graced her own lips, and her beautiful face took on an expression that was almost one of gratitude. "I'm still a bit beat up but I'll manage. They said if there are no further complications I can leave tomorrow."

He nodded. Her hand pulled free from his and went to the side of his face, to where his mask had not been in two years. She was the only person he had ever been comfortable around without his mask and she seemed to know this.

"Are you going to stay here?" she asked, her eyes anxious, dreadful of his answer.

He shook his head. "No, Luca, I can't."

From her lips escaped a sound like a small whimper. He realized what he had said — damn him for saying such things when she was so weak! — and immediately sought to rectify it.

"I want you to come to Earth with me."

She looked at him as though she didn't believe him. He had asked her this several times in the past and always she had refused. There would be no refusal this time, it seemed, and there was not.

"Zechs," she said after some time had passed with neither of them speaking. "I want to keep the baby."

He bent down, kissed her forehead. "Of course, Luca." He waited, deliberating. Finally: "I truly am sorry, Lucrezia. For everything. I'm sorry."

"I know."

"I should never have left you here in the first place, but at the time I had no other choice."

She looked at him. "And now?"

He placed a tentative hand on her shoulder. "It seems I once again have no choice."

She smiled up at him. She was so beautiful, his Lucrezia, his dark-eyed angel lying atop this crude white bed, so very beautiful that it all but made his eyes hurt to look at her. She had often called him her angel in the past but really she was his, though he would never be able to find the words to tell her this, nor to muster the courage required. She had stood by him in everything he had ever done regardless of whether it was right or wrong, holding his hand even when she could not agree with him, and had waited for him without question or complaint until he returned to her, and had in her own way protected him as he had always tried to do for her. She was the strong one, not he, and it was from her that he had drawn so much of his strength as a soldier.

God in Heaven, but he loved her. Even if he didn't know how to say it, he loved her.

And now she was pregnant. With his child nonetheless, for he suspected this, not the joys of motherhood, was the major reason that news of pregnancy did not disturb her.

The slight trace of a smile he'd felt upon his lips faded. "Do you still wonder why I left, Lucrezia?" It would be nothing less than wrong to withhold this from her now, and he had to tell her sometime, preferably before they went to Earth.

She raised an eyebrow and waited.

He stared at her for a few minutes, unsure of how to go on now that he had started. He thought of how Odin Lowe had broken the news to him and decided he should simply get to the point.

He cleared his throat, started, stopped. She waited patiently as he collected his thoughts and at some point he became aware that he was no longer holding her hand but rather, she was holding his.

His Lucrezia, his pillar of strength.

"Treize Kushrenada didn't die in the Eve Wars," he began finally, and this seemed to be the proper beginning, for with these words out of the way the rest of the tale came easily. Lucrezia listened to him raptly, her eyes widening again every few seconds or so in disbelief. One of her lovely Florentine hands pressed protectively into her abdomen, above the child that was even now slowly developing there. The expression on her face was one of appall, of anguish, and underlying it all, of fear.

"Why?" she asked when he came at last to the end. It was a desperate question, one with no answer. They both knew that well enough.

He embraced her. She sobbed dryly as she yielded to him. It was not an embrace of love necessarily, but an offering. An offering to what, neither of them knew; perhaps to the Earth, perhaps to the people of both the planet and the colonies, perhaps even to God, perhaps only to each other. Perhaps to their unborn child.

"Why?" she asked again, her lips moving against his neck. "Why does this have to happen again? Can you explain that to me, Zechs? Why?"

"I don't know, Luca."

She pulled away from him, looked into his eyes with a soldier's intensity. "I want to fight with you, Zechs."

"What?"

"You have to let me fight with you. You're not the only one with a personal stake in this."

"Lucrezia, you're–" He gestured toward her abdomen.

She scoffed. "I'm perfectly aware of what I am and if you remember the way our last mission ended, you'll be perfectly aware that you were quite enthusiastic about helping me get this way. But you can't expect me to sit idly by while everyone else goes off to fight. If you'd wanted a woman like that, you should have chosen one more like your sister."

"Luca–"

Her voice lost its acidic tone. "I'm pregnant, Zechs. I love you and you must feel something for me, because in another seven months I'm going to have your child. I'm pregnant, but I'm not dead, and I'm not broken either. The only difference in a combat situation would be that I would have to try to take more hits on the side and I'd have to loosen the pilot's harness after a while. You have to let me fight with you." There was a new note in her voice near the end, a note that told him she knew she could not fight in her condition. She may have been born the beautiful daughter of an Italian baron but ultimately she was a soldier, a soldier in pacifism but a soldier nonetheless, and the knowledge that she could no longer fulfill that purpose did nothing to soften the blow of everything he had just told her.

She gave no further protest, nor did she further question why all this was happening again. He silently held her against him, and neither of them spoke for a long while. They didn't need to.

After so long, another one of the doctors came into the room. He started to inform Zechs of the policy on visiting hours, then quickly departed when Zechs turned to glare at him. Another immeasurable amount of time later, Dr. Weison, accompanied by two nurses, made a routine check on Lucrezia, replacing the glucose IV and asking her a slew of questions cheerfully despite how late the hour must be. They all worked around Zechs as though he were not there. He remained with her all night. At some point he lay his head on the bed next to her. He was just barely aware, as he began to drift into sleep, of her running her fingers through his hair and whispering something in a tongue that seemed to him one spoken only by the highest angels of Heaven.

**II**

All went well throughout the evening, and Lucrezia was released from the hospital the following afternoon. She had gotten much of her strength back, he soon realized, and then he ashamedly thought that this was probably only because he was with her again.

They returned to their apartment. Lucrezia gathered some of her clothes and tossed them helter-skelter into a bag, then, after only a moment of consideration and a glance back at him, gathered the rest of them as well. When she lifted from a drawer a picture of him taken in their days at Lake Victoria and tucked it into a bag, he knew for certain what she was doing.

He gathered his own things. This would be his only opportunity to; they would not be returning here.

She stopped once by the doorway of their bedroom, a strange look of realization on her face.

"What is it, Luca?"

"That's what she meant," she mumbled.

He raised an eyebrow.

"We weren't supposed to return to Mars this soon, not without enough evidence of what we were supposed to find in L3."

It occurred to him that neither of them had ever thought to mention the mission she had been sent on.

She continued. "We never found anything, and for once Trowa seemed just as aloof as the rest of us. Then Une got a call from somewhere on Earth, something about mobile suits being sighted in Spain, and she left. She wouldn't say anything else about it, but that's what she meant, isn't it?"

"Does Trowa know where she went?"

"She asked me to keep it confidential until she knew something. Why?"

He found he could not repress a knowing smile. "Trowa has been employed by Odin Lowe. When he received word of the mission, he had the suits sent to the counteroffensive's Spanish base. I heard it caused quite a hectic situation."

She looked at him incredulously. "Trowa?"

"Yes."

"And when we were forced to dock outside the colony--"

He nodded. This, too, he had heard from Odin. "The so-called peacekeeping force was merely a group of members of the counteroffensive, answering a call from their superior. Trowa needed those hours to get the suits away from the colony."

She stared at him a moment longer, shook her head. "Do you think Une will find out about Treize?"

He touched her shoulder gently, understanding the root of her concern. "That is inevitable, I suppose. I pity her when she does. But she won't find anything regarding either his organization or the counteroffensive. That information is too carefully guarded."

She considered this. They left silently, giving not even one glance back to the small, cramped place where so much had happened between the two of them.

Zechs was right in believing they would never see it again.

**III**

They did not have to wait long for the shuttle's crew to prepare the craft for takeoff. Many of the crew members had served in the Guard in Sanq when Lucrezia had held the position of its captain and they greeted her warmly, with an enthusiasm they had not even come close to with Zechs. They seemed to warm up to him a bit more with her around, though. He wondered if he should take this as some sort of character judgement.

They sat at the head of the passenger compartment, at first in the same rigid positions to which they had become accustomed as soldiers. Only a few minutes into the flight she leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder, and a few minutes after that he slid his arm about her waist. It was not a deliberate action; rather he did it without being aware of it, and he was not fully aware until he felt the comforting warmth of her against him.

Neither of them spoke until they reached the Earth. Eventually Zechs became aware that she had fallen asleep. She needed it, certainly more than he did, for God-only-knew how little sleep she had gotten the night before; when he awoke that morning, she had still been watching him, smiling softly and tangling her fingers in the strands of his long platinum hair.

His thoughts turned from her to the child the two of them had made together. He had never, in all his life, given thought to becoming a father. Even now the possibility seemed unreal to him. How was he supposed to be a father to his child when he had barely even known his own father? He knew nothing of domestic life, and neither did Lucrezia for that matter — what kind of parents would they be if all they knew was warfare and sacrifice?

These were not the thoughts that disturbed him, however. They would manage with the child somehow (hadn't they always managed in the past?), and if it inherited more of its mother's traits, it would be well even despite Zechs's lack of experience. His concern was that he would not be able to save the child from the fate he himself had suffered. He had tried to save Mariemaia from becoming the next Milliardo Peacecraft while simultaneously trying to save the people from her intentions. Wouldn't it be ironic if he saved his enemy's daughter but failed his own child?

He couldn't think about this anymore. There would come a day when he was forced to think about it, but he could not do it now.

Lucrezia sighed in her sleep. Her violet eyes opened briefly, then again fell closed. Gently, afraid to wake her, he brushed her bangs aside and kissed her forehead.

She did not awaken until the shuttle touched down on Earth. One of the crew members put in a call to the palace in Newport to inform Queen Relena that her brother, accompanied by Miss Noin, had reached the Earth safely and would be returning to the palace in only a few minutes.

"Don't mention any of the things I told you to her," he said to Lucrezia as they got into the car that would take them to the palace.

She raised an eyebrow. "All this is happening right under her nose and she doesn't know about it?"

He thought of her last words to him before he had left the palace. "She's beginning to suspect something, but other than that, no, she does not."

Lucrezia sighed. She watched him from the corner of her eye, then after a moment of consideration, she settled back against him. He wondered if she would ever be able to trust him enough to do this without hesitation.

They reached the palace shortly after nightfall. The air was noticeably colder than it had previously been, chilled by the light wind that blew in from the seas. Lucrezia shivered and gathered her coat tighter about her, and when the car pulled away from the open gates Zechs tilted her face upward and brought his lips to hers. When the kiss ended she smiled and gave him a quizzical look, to which he could only shrug.

"Has she changed as much as they say she has?" Lucrezia asked as they started up the walkway that led to the palace entrance.

"More than that."

"How so?"

"I don't know how to explain it, Luca. She simply has. Perhaps you'll understand it once you've seen her."

Relena had been waiting for them by the door since she received word of their arrival on the planet. She greeted Lucrezia warmly, with none of the sorrow with which she had Zechs the night he had returned to Sanq, and once he caught Lucrezia looking at him as if to ask what had changed about her. And at first Relena _did_ seem that same girl she had been when Lucrezia had first met her, the very embodiment of innocence, so much that Zechs had to wonder if it were only himself around whom she was so morose.

Relena led them to a great sitting room while the servants carried all that they had brought with them to their quarters. The trio sat in front or the sculpted marble fireplace, Relena on one sofa, they on the one opposite hers, and it was only then that his sister could no longer maintain her act. She did not cry frequently as she did with Zechs (perhaps because she did not want to appear weak in front of Lucrezia) but rather delivered her narrative of the past months since she had seen Lucrezia in a flat yet somehow desperate monotone. After only a short while of listening to her Lucrezia pleaded weariness and excused herself and Zechs followed her, telling Relena he had to show her to their room.

"Of course, Milliardo," she said, looking almost chagrined. "I should have realized how tired the two of you must be."

She stepped toward him gingerly, embraced him. "Goodnight, brother."

He returned her embrace and went after Lucrezia.

He found her in the dark corridor leading to the staircase. She stood with her back against the wall, her head bowed and her eyes wide, and one hand pressed over her stomach.

"What's happened to her?" she asked when she saw him. "Zechs, did you hear her?"

"I've been hearing her for days, Luca. She refuses to tell me what troubles her so."

Lucrezia allowed him to lead her up the stairs to their room. The two leather bags containing their clothes had been set at the center of the parlor; they ignored them and went directly to the bedroom. Lucrezia went into the adjacent bath and splashed cold water from the sink onto her face to calm herself. When it finally began to take effect, she sat on the edge of the bed with him. They tried to speak of Relena and couldn't, tried to speak of the baby and couldn't do that, either. In the end they simply dimmed the lamp and climbed into bed still fully dressed, where he held her until dawn.

**Author's Notes:** This chapter is probably my least favorite. It was necessary to reintroduce Lucrezia into the story, although she will only be a background character from here on out. The only enjoyable part of this chapter was writing Zechs's annoyance at the overly friendly doctor. I did, however, feel that there should be a scene that contrasts Zechs's behavior in the first chapters, as I believe that he does feel quite strongly for Lucrezia. It isn't that I dislike her character; it's merely that I have no feel for her.


	9. Chapter Eight

_Chapter Eight_

**I**

Out of the shadows, into the light. The sun hurt his eyes but only briefly, and once he recovered from the assault he stepped beyond the threshold and into the despicably civilized world beyond.

Heero departed the place that had been his desolate home for the past month. He had stayed there long enough, he knew, too long really, and would have to move on soon.

Were he more naïve, he might have fooled himself into believing he could leave without informing Odin Lowe of where he was going and never return to the counteroffensive base, but he knew better than that. Odin would find him regardless of where he went or what he did. He half-believed Odin could find him in the seventh ring of Hell, if Hell existed.

He had no intentions of trying to escape his former mentor's presence, though. Odin was essential to his mission, if not the primary factor for it as well, though if he were not the primary factor, Heero did not know what was.

His thoughts were far from Odin this morning, as well as from the counteroffensive and the damnable mission. Rather they were on his surroundings, trying to place any subtle difference.

There was none.

Whoever was following him was undeniably good, so good, in fact, that even Heero was almost unnerved by him. Still, he was not good enough to escape his awareness. Heero, trained from youth, had always been good at spotting a tail, and now was no exception, although he was not spotting it so much as he was sensing it.

He had yet to actually see a sign of his stalker. One thing was already clear, however: when at last he did see him, he could not be allowed to live. Better he should kill him immediately and without interrogation than to let him live in hopes of sucking some vital information out of him only to be killed in return. He had never been one for questioning anyway. If he wanted to hear someone's pathetic sob story, he would buy them a beer and invite them over. Perhaps that had been one of the biggest differences between himself and Quatre: Quatre believed in the goodness of all humanity and that people were forced to do bad things by their own subconscious pain, a very Freudian concept, and Heero just didn't care.

His hands were shoved into the pockets of his dark trench coat, his right gripping one of the guns he carried with him, his left poised to grip the other should something prevent his dominant hand from acting. He was prepared to kill his stalker if he became visible for even one moment.

He would be entering the city soon; however, this was no hindrance. If he caught sight of the one pursuing him he would empty the contents of one gun into him and then proceed to empty the second if he deemed it necessary, whether they were in public or not. He could escape the authorities without any problem, and none that knew him in the counteroffensive would have any objection to his actions.

He had finally informed Odin of the circumstances, to which Odin had responded simply for him to do as he wished, and Yuan-Chen would never have found himself in this position to begin with. And Heero knew that, if placed in this situation, Odin would do the same. He practically already had.

As much as he wanted to die, to be shot down by a pursuer of whom one was aware the entire time was simply disgraceful, and while Heero couldn't care less about dying with dignity or honor, he found the idea of being gunned down amid a crowded street repulsive.

He entered the city and passed throughout it without incident.

It was a gray morning over the Spanish countryside, but there was enough light to make him fully visible as he stepped out of the woods. He hesitated briefly on the threshold of the forest, scanning the field ahead of him and the woods that bordered it. He saw nothing but he knew he was not alone all the same.

He withdrew his gun, held it firmly at his side. He turned up the collar of his coat and lowered his head, then stepped out into the open, half-expecting to hear the gunshot before his foot even touched the ground.

He had not always been so unnerved by his pursuer. It was not the first time he had ever sensed he was being followed, and at first this new stalker hadn't made the slightest impression upon him. They were acting no differently than they had when first he became aware of them, but he could sense something new in their constant pursuit of him, something that caused him to carry four guns with him this morning, two in either of the outer pockets of his trench coat, one tucked into the waist of his pants, the fourth secured to his left ankle.

_Desperation_.

The word struck him as he walked parallel to the woods and he found it strangely accurate. There was desperation in the chase now, the kind of desperation that meant whoever had employed the one who followed him was running out of time to attain whatever it was they wanted from him. Desperation that could lead to desperate measures being taken, which in turn could result in lives other than Heero's own being taken, which simply could not be allowed.

It was this desperation that unnerved him, and it was this desperation that convinced him that the tail had been sent by Treize Kushrenada.

Running out of time…possibly. Odin had said he believed something was about to happen in Greece, and if it were something major, that would account for someone being sent to Spain to see what information could be found there.

He was sure he had supplied nothing. He had always made sure he no longer sensed that he was being watched before going to the base, and once he left he did not feel them again until he had reached the city, nor had he ever gone where he intended to go today when he even suspected he was being followed. Everywhere else he went was inconsequential. He wondered which of the two was more important to him: the counteroffensive or the one he was going to see, the closest thing to a friend he had ever known. Which would cost him more to lose, and which could he not afford to lose at all? Would he trade the lives of all those involved in the counteroffensive for the one he walked toward now? The answer was simple, shameful: yes. He would trade the lives of all those people for just one, and he could do it without regret. It would even get him the only thing he had never been able to get for himself: his death. He could lead his stalker to the base and let everyone there die, and then Odin Lowe would kill him for it. It would be swift, it would be brutal, and ultimately, it would be an end.

But he would not do it, not even for his death.

Something moved in the woods to his left. He swung around, gun raised, and for one moment he knew he was looking into his stalker's eyes, then the shadow pivoted and sprinted through the forest.

Heero ran into the woods after it.

He saw the shadow again in a patch of light where the sun penetrated the forest floor. He turned and fired blindly at it. Dust and pine needles flew up in the bullet's wake, but the shadow was unscathed.

He chased it further into the woods. There was no light here, nothing to make a shadow that would warn him of his enemy's approach. It was not a good place for this, whether it turned into a simple duel or a shoot-out.

He ran on. He was familiar with the forest but there was still a chance that his enemy was not, and if he could maneuver the chase to a certain place he had a better chance at getting a clear shot at him.

Running. Over the dry, dusty earth, over rocks and fallen pine needles, over a narrow stream and the stone slope beyond. The pine needles crunched under his shoes, betraying his position with every step. If he listened closely, he could hear their dry splitting somewhere else.

He fired another shot in that direction and ran on.

They passed out of the thickest part of the woods. From the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of some vague form changing direction, and he was realized his enemy was trying to get behind him. That was fine, perhaps better.

He ran toward the hill, where he hoped to have a better chance at confronting his enemy. He kept his head lowered in anticipation of a gunshot. He highly doubted that his enemy was unarmed, and he was unnerved that there had been no other assault on him yet.

The figure darted in front of him again, and as he aimed his gun at it, it fell back behind.

_What the hell were they doing?_

At last he spotted the hill up ahead of him. It seemed, up until one stood at its crest, that one could simply run up one side and down the other, but an act of erosion had made that impossible. The hill ended at its crest in a nine-foot drop-off, which Heero intended to use to his advantage.

He sprinted up the hill. He could hear his pursuer breathing behind him now but he could not turn to see his face, for if he did he would stumble, literally, into his own trap.

Holding the gun at his side, he leapt over the drop-off. He struck the ground on his feet and turned in time to see his pursuer fall from the drop. It was a woman, he saw with no shock or disdain, around his size and age, and his eyes bulged at the initial thought that it was Relena.

The woman landed on her side. The still air rang out with the sound of her right shoulder cracking. She cried out and continued to roll, stopping finally only inches from his feet.

He cocked the gun again and aimed it at the spot between her eyes.

Her eyes — two pale orbs of green — opened and she looked up at him. She looked nothing like Relena this close; her face held none of Relena's innocence but rather a strange, wild beauty, a face not of soft curving angles but sharp feline points.

She laughed quietly, then winced as the pain in her shoulder flared again. "Heero Yuy," she said. "Takeru Hanasaki." She spat on his shoes. "Your mother was a whore."

Where others would have been offended, he was unfazed by this. He only remembered his mother when he chose to do so, and her good dignity was of little consequence to him.

His finger tightened on the trigger, and he wondered why he hadn't pulled it yet.

"What are you waiting for, Takeru? Has the perfect soldier actually forgotten how to perform a task as simple as firing a gun? If so, then–" She sprang to her feet and ran, clutching her injured shoulder. He followed after her. She was running even faster than she had before, and he could not gain on her.

Her laughter floated back to him as he followed, he the pursuer now. He brought the gun up again, leveled it at the back of her right knee, and fired.

The bullet hit its mark this time.

With a shrill, piercing scream that could have been in reality a laugh the girl dropped to the ground. She lowered her head and shielded her neck before he could get off a shot at those vital locations too, then, as though oblivious to him, bent to examine her wound.

Keeping the gun trained on her, he walked toward the place where she had fallen. She collapsed against the ground as he approached, her lips pulled back to reveal a demon's grin.

She looked up at him warily, but her grin remained.

"Aren't you going to interrogate me first?" she asked mockingly. Her auburn hair, dark red in the shadows, fanned out around her head like a fresh pool of spreading blood. "Why kill me when you don't even know who I am?"

"I don't care who you are." He knelt and pressed the gun to her temple.

"Very well then." Her eyes lit up and her hand rose, and too late he saw the blade strapped to her palm. Before he could move she cupped the back of his head, the very gesture of a lover, and the blade was buried into his scalp.

He felt the disorientation immediately. His mouth fell open — not from shock but reflex — and his vision blurred, and suddenly all he could feel or sense was the cold length of steel imbedded along his skull and something warm and pleasantly thick streaming down his neck.

The girl, still holding the blade to his head, pushed him back and sat up. She slid her other arm around him and, as he struggled futilely against the darkness that threatened to overtake him, she lowered him onto the ground, as a groom lowering his new bride onto the marriage bed.

"My name is Aphrodite Delankos," she said. "Remember that when I receive orders to kill you."

He fought to stand up and couldn't, and then she was gone. In another moment, so was he.

**II**

When he awoke, the sun had begun to go down in the far west, painting the forest in an overly bright shade of orange that hurt his eyes. He groaned as they opened, then quickly turned his head away from the light.

The disorientation was gone, but the memory of what had happened was not. His eyes darted rapidly around the cluttered woods, but he saw nothing.

After a few minutes he realized that he was alone. It was entirely possible that she could be elsewhere in the forest, waiting on him to regain consciousness, perhaps with something other than a blade in her hand, but he knew she was not, just as he had always known when she was following behind him and when she was not. She had had her wound to tend to, and with her quarry disabled, her work was done for the evening.

He pulled himself up into a sitting position. Instantly he realized that his gun was gone. Whether he had dropped it when the blade had been pressed into his head or the girl had taken it from him, he didn't know, but it was not lying on the ground beside him now.

He reached into his trench coat, feeling for the second gun. It seemed she had removed it as well.

He reached down, checked his ankle. The holster was still there to taunt him, but the gun was not.

There seemed to be one place she hadn't thought of to look for a gun. He could feel, as he bent, the cold press of the fourth gun against his abdomen.

He withdrew the revolver. It truly was untouched, fully loaded, and not disabled in any way.

With a low grunt he rose to his feet. The wound on the back of his head, dry now, throbbed fiercely but his face made no change.

The ground upon which he had lain was not as bloodied as he had expected. The wound had bled a good amount, enough to leave him unconscious for so long, and the dust beneath where his head had fallen was dyed in a sickeningly dark shade of crimson, but the length of this red area was surprisingly small.

He touched the back of his head, felt along the wound. Indeed it was dry now, dry and sore enough to make him wince at the slightest touch. He wondered briefly how severe the injury was, then decided it could not be too bad if it were dry and he were alive.

_Aphrodite Delankos._ The name was undeniably of Greek origin, and Heero had no reason to suspect that there might be yet another force rising in Greece that could involve himself or the counteroffensive altogether. Treize had sent the girl.

He would have to inform Odin of this.

Gun in hand, Heero proceeded through the woods. They were dark now, pitch black in certain areas, but he knew his way through them well enough not to need the light.

He went in the same direction as he had been going when he had at long last spotted the girl, away from the place he would soon be leaving, away from the counteroffensive's base. This might be his last chance to visit his friend after what had just happened, and he intended to take advantage of it. He needed it right now. Later, once he had said all that needed to be said at the moment, he would go to the base and allow Yuan-Chen to provide any necessary medical aid to the wound. It would not be the first time he had had to do this.

His eyes went briefly down to the scar that snaked down the length of his left hand and disappeared underneath the sleeve of his coat, where it continued up his wrist.

No, this definitely would not be the first time.

He continued onward. It had been too long since his last visit, but he knew his friend didn't care. His friend didn't care about anything, not even Heero himself.

The woods he trudged through needed no description. To his mind they were all the same, one of the few remaining areas that had yet to be touched by man.

At last, however, he came to a place that had been touched. In the midst of a small clearing in the woods stood a large, gray building, bearing no evidence of ownership or use. It was nonetheless secluded, though, for the twisting path that led through the forest to it had years ago grown over, and to his knowledge, he was the only human who ever came here. It was here that his companion waited for him.

He disengaged the locks on the entrance and slipped quickly into the building, though he knew there was no one there to see him do it. After so many years of practicing it, discretion had become a habit with him.

There were no windows anywhere on the structure, nor was there any natural light. Heero flicked a switch on the wall to his right and, one by one, a series of incandescent bulbs overhead came on, providing just enough light to allow him to see where he was going.

Whatever the building had once been, it maintained nothing of its former glory. Any interior walls that may have once existed had been torn down; anything that may once have stood or been kept within those walls had been taken out. It was merely one great empty room now, cold and lifeless.

Or perhaps not entirely empty. Not really, though at first it seemed that way. At the back of the room, hidden in the shadows, was a staircase, and at the foot of the staircase lay the one he had come here to find.

This lower level was already lighted, just as it always was when he came and always would be when he left. The lights were powered by a generator, which strangely had been left when the building was abandoned.

He crossed the room to the staircase, silently, quickly, unaware still that he was taking unnecessary precautions; likewise he descended the stairs. He paused only after coming away from the foot of them, long enough for his passive blue eyes to register that what he had come here to find was indeed still here, intact and untouched since his last visit. The last remaining Gundam, the only one that had not been destroyed after the battle with Mariemaia, stood at the far edge of the room, unrestrained, a passive war machine.

_God, but he needed this now._

He tucked his gun into one of the pockets of his coat and started toward the Gundam. Its eyes, dull, lifeless in the shadows, stared down at him like the eyes of a malevolent beast, a modern version of an angry Roman god.

_Will you pass your judgement upon me now? Or haven't I sinned for you enough?_

The Gundam gave no answer. He had never really expected one, not after so many years of silence between them. He climbed up into the cockpit. It was pleasantly cold inside its metal confines, and the chill penetrated his flesh to the very marrow of his bones.

_The only sanctuary he had ever known. _

He settled into the pilot's seat. The Wing Zero gave no protest to his intrusion. Heero wondered briefly when he had come to think of the Gundam as a living being, then decided that it did not matter.

The helmet he had worn when he had first used the Zero system — the helmet that had originally been used as a direct link between the system and his brain — lay beside the seat like a child's discarded toy. He picked it up, ran his fingers across the smooth surface of the convexity where it curved to fit his head.

Something so monstrous as the system should never have been created, he thought, and he slipped the helmet over his head.

There was a small black disk concealed in a split in the control panel. He retrieved it and inserted it into a slot in the system's central components.

The silence was broken by a low hum as the disk activated the program he had installed into the system. The viewing portal in front of him cleared, at first to reveal the empty room around him, then promptly faded to black, broken only by three words printed across the screen in white.

_Zero System activated_

He sighed and fell back against the seat. The pain in the back of his head was down to a dull throb now, and the slight pressure the helmet put on it kept him carelessly aware of the wound there and how it had been inflicted.

The program on the disk was a battle simulation, designed in a bunker in the lowest floor of the base against the knowledge of Odin Lowe using the data he had taken from the salvaged systems of mobile dolls. It required no commands and no responses, only a brain strong enough to accept what it was shown.

Often, Heero had only been able to come so far in challenging the program. Tonight, however…

He had only one more conscious thought before his mind was surrendered completely to the system: that he would find the girl, Aphrodite, and he would kill her. Then there was nothing but the system. His drug, his addiction. The only thing that had ever not cared about him as he didn't care about it.

Would he trade them all, every one of their lives, for this? Yes, their lives and then some. His own if the system demanded it. Perhaps it would in the upcoming battle. Then what? Hell, if it existed, and he did not believe it did. Then emptiness. That was real; it had to be. An emptiness where the souls of the blessed and the damned were cast equally, thrown atop one another like the corpses after a massacre. Better he should go into that emptiness than into Hell — if he were in the latter, perhaps one of the demons assigned to torment him would be one of those he had killed.

These things were far from his mind now, however. There was no Grecian girl acting as a shadow to his every move; there was no man standing behind her who had died two years ago yet lived still. There was only the system. There was no Grecian-German army rising in the east, nor was there any counteroffensive. There was only the system. There was no Odin Lowe, no Xing Yuan-Chen, and there had never been a Hanasaki Sakura to connect them all. There was only the system. There was no Heero Yuy, nor was there anymore a boy who had once been called Takeru. There was only this. There was no war, no peace, no life, no death. There was no Heaven or Hell. There was, ultimately, only this. _Only this._

So far gone was he that he did not even feel it when, in the simulation that played out on the viewing screen, he died.

**III**

The first thing Rhyn Tolkien had noticed when he stepped off the plane was how much colder Germany was than Greece. He had dressed warmly enough, in the designated uniform of Alsirae Trecais's legion of soldiers underneath a large coat, but his usually warm clothes were not sufficient to keep the chill from immediately sinking into his blood. That chill would stay with him for the next week. Later, once he found himself sleeping not in the tight, cramped, but comfortable-enough soldier's quarters but rather in a cell so cold he could see his own breath, he would come to believe that the chill had been a premonition of some sort.

He then noticed how different the base was than the former palace of Thessaloníki. It was graceful, yes, as everything Treize Kushrenada touched seemed to be, but in an Old World way, lacking the grandeur of the Italian-Greek influences. While the Greek base all but shone in its deep, rich colors of ivory and gold and occasionally crimson, this one was dull, gray stone upon white mortar, with all the depressing harshness of a Medieval servant's quarter.

He noticed many other things after his arrival, most with some degree of amusement. However, he failed to notice the officers watching him wherever he went.

The first few days in Germany were uneventful. They unloaded the shipment of titanium — Rhyn was even one of the lucky ones chosen to help with the unloading manually, and the next morning he awoke with an almost disabling ache in his arms — and then saw it all properly into the designated section of the base, where it would be used to construct the next unit of mobile suits. These suits were most likely only for backup, they were told, to be used only as a last resort. This was the only thing they were informed of that Rhyn didn't already know.

He had spent much of his time with the soldiers who were to pilot the Gemini suits. Only a few of them had had any real mobile suit training, he realized, and next came the realization that most of these men were going to die, assisted to their deaths by Rhyn himself.

After this, he was no longer able to stay in their company for very long.

He kept to himself all that final day. His cold had begun to taper off and he could again breathe normally without periodically having to leave his assigned chamber for fresher air, meaning he could avoid the camaraderie that was beginning to form amongst the ranks.

Perhaps it was his antisocial behavior that first alarmed the higher-ups of the organization to him. He would, later that evening, consider this possibility, surprisingly with no regret over what he had done.

He rubbed his eyes and sat back in the chair lazily, hardly in the manner of the proper soldier he was supposed to be acting as now. He had been sitting in front of the computer for hours, sorting through the base's files, searching for anything that would provide a lead to the identity of Treize's benefactor. He was finding nothing instead, and getting quite sick of it.

Not that he would be able to use the information were he to find it anyway. This mission had restricted him to use only the base's computers, and any messages sent to Odin Lowe could be traced immediately back to him.

"Bloody hell," he whispered, and shut the computer off. Too many precautions had been taken to conceal the name of the benefactor; if he hadn't found it yet, he probably never would.

He found himself thinking of the night the former Lightning Count, Zechs Marquise, had learned of the Council's involvement with Treize, the night that Marquise had come within an inch of killing him. Marquise had been shocked but not shocked enough, alarmed only because it meant that Treize was being backed by someone of enormous power and influence. But he didn't know just _how _powerful a high member of the Council was, or what their involvement with Kushrenada could mean for the Earth. He hadn't lived on Earth since the Council had come into power; he wasn't fully aware of what could happen if Treize found favor with more than one member, that under proper influence the Council could award him control over whatever nation he wanted, over the entire Earthsphere if he so desired and so pulled strings, and the power to crush any who opposed him. Perhaps the full extent of what Treize's connection to the Council could mean would have struck Marquise a little harder if he had been informed that the Council could also pull the strings that would give Treize control of the colonies as well.

Marquise's quarrel was with Treize and Treize alone, not the powers behind the throne or even those who would see another war come into place. Treize symbolized all of that for him.

But would that be enough? When the time came to go to war, not the physical battle itself but the political one as well, would that personal quarrel be enough to ensure that what needed to be done was?

Rhyn got up from the chair, started for the small sofa on the other side of the room. He was a craving a drink at the moment and — glancing up at the clock — he estimated that in another hour or so the lounge would have cleared out enough to allow him to raid the bar without drawing much attention to himself.

His thoughts of going through the liquor cabinets — did they have anything good in Germany? — were interrupted by a sudden fierce pounding at the door of his quarters.

"Oh, piss off," he mumbled thickly, sniffling and rising from the sofa at the same time, knowing fully well that whoever it was wasn't going to piss off, then, as a mouse into a wolf's teeth, he went to the door and opened it.

A uniformed officer stood outside, his hard face expressionless as he stared down at the clipboard he held in his gloved hands. He looked up at Rhyn expectantly.

Rhyn brought his feet together and saluted, absentmindedly in the manner of a soldier in England, which had been instilled in him during his time spent in the Imperial Guard there. "Yes?"

"You _are _Rhyn Tolkien, I presume," the officer stated as though reading it from a cue card.

"No, but I am wearing his underwear."

The officer glared at him, identifying him, as so many did, by his complete refusal to be an obedient little soldier. "Identity code 0831172901?"

"Let me check." He pulled the waist of his pants as though to examine the aforementioned undergarments. "The name's there, but I think this number has got another three or so in it."

The officer gave no sign of amusement. "Would you please step out into the hallway, sir?"

"Oh, I get a 'sir' now, do I?" He stepped out of the doorway.

The club came down hard and fast from his right, connecting with his back across his shoulder blades. He soundlessly went down on his knees, blinded and choked by the shock and the pain of the blow. He could not feel anything below the neck but nonetheless he drew his knees up to his chest and shielded his face with his hands.

Somebody barked out an order in German. A phalanx of footsteps responded, and in an instant he realized that they had been waiting alongside the walls for him to step out, lining the hall as predators biding their time before the kill, starved for his blood.

He futilely tried to push one of those surrounding him away as, deafened by the sound of the others filing in to search his rooms, he felt the shackles being clamped on his wrists.

Someone approached him from the front. He looked up, his eyes tearing not from fear but from pain, and beheld the face of Treize Kushrenada himself, smiling like an angel of death presiding over his latest conquest.

Treize knelt down in front of him, placed one hand against his face. His smile became almost sympathetic.

"You've served Odin well, Rhyn," he whispered, then so quietly that only Rhyn could hear, he added, "Thank you."

Rhyn too disoriented to be confused by this, spat in his face. "I'll see you in hell for this, you bastard," he growled, then again something came down upon him, connecting with the back of his head this time, and as he collapsed even Treize's bright face faded into the consuming darkness.

**Author's Notes: **This was one of my favorite chapters to write, despite how short it is. It officially ends the first part of Ballad, simply entitled "Prelude," and I feel that it makes a suitable transition. At the beginning of the chapter, another side of Aphrodite's character is introduced, and there are more allusions to the past that I decided to create for Heero in this story. (For any who are interested, more of Aphrodite's connection to Heero is explained in Ballad's sequel.) I suppose it was rather obvious whom Heero was on his way to see when he was waylaid, but I never really intended it to be otherwise. The threat (and perhaps hope) of his own destruction has always been a rather potent drug for Heero, I think. If anyone prefers a little mood music with their fan fiction reading, I've found that Garbage's "Medication" off their _Version 2.0_ CD works well with this chapter.

In regard to the two Japanese names used in this chapter, usually I do not invert Japanese surnames and given names, but as Aphrodite is European, I found it more plausible for her to do so. For anyone who is curious, names take me forever to choose, and I usually find them in the oddest places. The surname 'Hanasaki' I got out of a friend's magazine, as well as 'Takeru,' although I am very fond of this name. 'Sakura' is simply my favorite Japanese name; it's phonetically very pretty, and I'd been dying to use it in a story, but never got the chance until Ballad.

I've gotten so many great responses about Rhyn. I'm very glad that so many people seem to like him so much. He is rather careless, though, as exemplified in this chapter. This is by far not his final appearance in Ballad, however.


	10. Chapter Nine

_**A Ballad of War: Interlude**_

_Chapter Nine_

The mist was thick over the hills this morning, cool, thick, gray as the flesh of a corpse pulled tautly over its bones. Two lights — a pair of tiny gems atop a bed of gray velvet — shone dimly through the haze in the valley below, the only signs of life visible at this early hour. It would rain later, he knew, and he silently mused to himself that when it did those two lights would shine still, as changeless as true innocence.

He folded the letter and laid it at his side upon the red cushioned seat. He had read over it twice since receiving it in the city, and he had a feeling he would read it yet a third time before the carriage reached the castle.

Treize closed his eyes and breathed in the cold German air, savoring its scent like he would the finest wine. He had missed his beloved Germany, even when surrounded by all the splendor of the palace in Greece, and seeing it again was almost enough to make him decide to return to it permanently.

He had been in Germany for two weeks now, since the eve of the incident. No one either in the city or in these countryside villages had yet recognized him, but he was fully aware that sooner or later someone would identify his face, and once having identified him, would connect him to the events in Austria.

Some, those who had known for months that he had survived the Eve Wars but were uninvolved in the organization, were already beginning to do that.

It was of little consequence to him now, though, if it had ever been more than that. The whole incident was of little consequence to him. There were reasons for this, yes, but other than to himself and God, they were unknown to any. Perhaps one day Zechs . . . no, it was best not to consider that possibility yet. Later, once the smoke from the incident in Austria had cleared, it would be time then, but not now.

It seemed Germany was the only place in the world that had not gone completely insane in light of what had happened in Austria. The cities were bustling with the news of it, of course, but nothing more than that, even given how close Austria was, but the country villages had hardly taken note of it.

This was all for the best, he supposed. Perhaps it would ensure that if the upcoming battle were to shift from Greece to Germany, these villages would be spared.

Would that be of consequence, if the battle were moved from the one country to his own? No, ultimately, for eventually the Sanq Kingdom would be seized, or, at least, that lay in the plans for the outcome of the war that would have to arise sooner now. The kingdom would be the great martyr of war for the final time, regardless of where that war was staged.

He had sometimes wondered in the past why Zechs had so silently agreed to stand by as his kingdom was overtaken. Once, weeks ago now in the palace at Thessaloníki, he had voiced this question to him, and as he often did, Zechs had held his tongue.

"Come now, Milliardo," Treize had continued. "Will you allow me to do it when the time comes? Will you allow me to simply step up to the throne that we both know should rightfully be yours? Or will you fight me then?"

Again, no answer.

"We both know I could rule it with more grace and power than she. She lacks something in her leadership, wouldn't you agree? Would you tell me what it is, Milliardo? You'll do her no great dishonor if you say it; rather, I think you may be the only one in the proper position to do so."

Zechs had crossed the room to the chair and fell wearily into it. "Are you saying that I should fight against you?"

"Perhaps you should. Why do you not, Milliardo? Knowing that your involvement only helps my cause."

Zechs had looked away from him then, and for a moment it had seemed he would not reply. "Because I can do nothing else," he answered finally, and this had been sufficient.

It was true that he held some power over Zechs and had since they were young children, but even he did not know the extent of that power. Even so, he knew that Zechs indeed could never betray him so fully.

Treize smiled at the very thought of it. "Milliardo," he whispered to the otherwise empty carriage, "my beautiful stoic."

It was true also that he loved Milliardo, true that they were incapable of feeling anything but love for each other. Even when they had fought against each other in the past, both playing the role of the antagonist, they had loved each other, even if Treize was the only one capable of putting it into those precise words.

He wondered if Zechs would deny it.

He remembered how one young man in Luxembourg had, during Treize's imprisonment there, made a tasteless insinuation that Treize and the infamous Lightning Count had once had some sort of physical relationship. And just as clearly as he remembered the insolent young man's degrading comment, he remembered holding a stolen gun to the boy's temple and watching his eyes widen the moment before he pulled the trigger. He was sure the world had suffered no great loss.

But as much as he loved Milliardo, he was not afraid of using him. On the contrary, Milliardo was suiting his purposes well at the moment, so well that he had sometimes doubted Milliardo's complete unawareness of what he was doing, of why he would see this war come into being. But Milliardo didn't know, not really, for if he did, he would have tried to stop him by now.

Treize sighed half-wearily. He had been hoping to receive a message from the others in Thessaloníki by now but there had yet been none. They could not contact him directly, of course, for fear that his location would be revealed to the enemy. The bombing in Austria had put the entire base on edge, and newer, almost ridiculous, precautions were being taken because of it.

It was this new sense of suspicion at the base that had caused him to retreat temporarily to his home in Germany, not, as he had said, concern for his own safety. The soldiers stationed in Germany knew of the bombing, of course, as did the rest of the world and space, but they were still relatively untouched by it. Their actions were still fluid and well-thought and their speech was still eloquent and proper, unhurried by the war that would now begin, and, after all, he was still more of an aesthete than a general. The aftermath of a war was rarely ever suitable to his palate.

Only he knew the real cause of the bombing and that it wasn't, as was believed, because of a breach in security. The enemy had never infiltrated their computers, nor had the location of where the newest completed battalion of Gemini suits were being sent been learned through the interception of one of their messages. Odin Lowe and his network of beautifully loyal subordinates had had nothing to do with the incident, and Treize could only imagine the reaction that had swept through the counteroffensive when they had learned of what had happened.

The first attack, the first assault on world peace since the Mariemaia incident of 196, was to have taken place five miles north of the borders of the Sanq Kingdom. The needed mobile suits, only a battalion or two, were to be shipped to a private location outside of Thessaloníki three weeks prior to the attack, with their pilots following after them a week later. The train carrying the suits was to make a two-night stop in Austria, and it was at this point in the suits' transportation that the operation would be most vulnerable.

Someone else had realized this too, it seemed, for only half an hour after arriving at the designated location in Austria, the train had come under attack, obliterated from the inside by a set of explosives that had been strategically rigged all throughout its compartments. Fifteen crewmen were killed immediately, and seventeen more died while waiting for medical aid. Another eleven died the following day in the local hospital of injuries sustained in the explosion. It would have been a beautiful plan, really, the assault on the carrier, the perfect way to thwart the plans of the organization without drawing attention to both it and the counteroffensive, beautiful had it caused the complete destruction of the carrier, leaving no trace of the cargo. However, rather than complete destruction, due to improper placing of the explosives, only the first three compartments had suffered a total loss, leaving those that contained the suits. The provincial Austrian government had learned of the explosion before the organization and therefore were the first ones on the scene, arriving just after the smoke had cleared enough to allow them to see the plainly exposed suits, lying like fallen titans on the smoldering battlefield.

The discovery was released globally to the public the following day, and, Treize knew, the desired effect had been achieved. It seemed the entire world — with the exception of his beloved Germany — was held firmly in the grip of the cold, bloodstained hand of true panic, all of them waiting for something else to happen, lying awake in bed each night for fear that they would never see the morning if they slept. The Prevention Organization, he had heard, head sent many of its members, newly returned from the international Council sessions, to the Earth to investigate the matter.

He wondered if Une had come with them. He had not spoken to her since before his alleged death, nor had he ever given her any sign that he had lived through that battle. Even now, it was not necessary for her to learn of his existence. Perhaps it was best that she did not. It would change neither of their positions if they were to meet again — he would continue in the path necessary for him to take and she would have to continue as the head of an organization that would work to stop him. And he did not wish her to be disgraced by taking the side of the instigator of the next great war, even if the instigator had once been her lover.

If she were to discover his survival, however, he thought she would understand.

And someday, so would Milliardo. Perhaps he would understand to an extent that even Une could not.

He wished he could have seen Milliardo's reaction when the news of the incident in Austria had reached Sanq. Had the beautiful stoic even blinked when he had heard what had happened, or had he somewhere suspected that it would all along? Had he even yet told Miss Noin of what was happening all around the kingdom and his own involvement with those forces? And if so, had he told her everything, just as he had _not_ told everything to Treize?

He would have to ask him these things in the future. Perhaps it would help him in the decision he had been faced with making when, almost two years ago, Milliardo had come to him, stumbling and barely even aware of his own surroundings and he had offered him a role in the organization.

He would wonder about Queen Relena's reaction, but the letter at his side had answered that question for him. He did wonder how long it would be until Milliardo learned of this development, however.

The carriage came to a gradual stop at the entrance to the private grounds. A single officer, heavily but not visibly armed, leaned in the open window to confirm his identity.

"Good morning, Herr Kushrenada," he said, once having identified him.

"Yes, isn't it a pleasant morning?"

The officer nodded an agreement. "I've been asked to give you a message from Department AE-2011."

AE-2011. The base's equivalent of a military prison. "Yes?"

"They said that the difficult one, the British one, talked last night."

"Tolkien, you mean."

"I suppose."

Treize waved it off. "He's lying, whatever he said."

"They say he gave a name."

"It's false. He wouldn't betray the one he's working for."

The officer thought for a moment, perhaps never having been contradicted before in his life. "I'll relay that message to the department," he said finally, and waved the driver though the gates.

Treize failed to see why the heads of the department had taken the trouble to contact him to tell him that Tolkien had given another name last night. Since his arrest three weeks ago, he had averaged supplying a new name every four days, and each of them had proven false. It wouldn't be much longer before this one did as well.

Treize had, before returning briefly to the palace at Thessaloníki, remained on the base long enough to witness Tolkien's first interrogation, which, thanks to the ill-placed blow to the back of his head, had not occurred until the night following his apprehension. He had ordered the officers in charge of the arrest to merely disable the boy, not put him within inches of death.

He had already been beaten again by the time he had been brought in for questioning, more extensively this time, yet upon his swollen, cut, bruised face had been that same wondering, almost naïve smile for which he had been known within the organization.

He had seemed oblivious to Treize as he was herded into the room but had greeted all the others warmly, as though he were sitting down at a dinner party rather than an inquisition.

"Would you state your name for the record?" the chief interrogator – von Buren, his name was — had begun, in near-flawless English.

The prisoner's eyes (or, at least, the one eye that had not been swollen shut) had lit up and his jaw dropped open in mock amazement. "Would I?" he had all but exclaimed, in an effeminate voice that had almost gotten a smile from one of the other officers in the room. "Of course, I would, especially if it's for you." He had stretched his cuffed hands under the table, trying to touch von Buren's leg. Von Buren kicked away from him and his chair toppled over backward, and this did get a laugh from the others.

Von Buren leapt to his feet and cursed the boy in German. The boy merely smiled.

"State your name," Von Buren repeated finally, and Treize had been glad he had not allowed him to carry a gun.

The humor appeared to leave the boy's face, and his expression became almost as somber as his eyes were when they had been fully visible. "Rhyn Tolkien."

"Is that your real name?"

"Of course not."

"What is your real name?"

"Midii Une," he had responded seriously, then looked up at Treize and batted his eye. "And my, aren't you a handsome devil?"

His own name was the only information they had gotten out of him that evening, which had concluded when Rhyn, moving carefully but quickly because of the shackles around his ankles, had climbed up onto the table and began to deliver, in a clear, rich, and undeniably beautiful voice an aria from an opera with which Treize was quite familiar. He had always known, since Rhyn's start in his organization, that the young Brit had once been a skilled opera singer.

Perhaps nothing more would be learned from him at all. Treize found himself hoping that the boy remained true to his convictions and leaked none of the sought information.

However, he had heard that recently the boy had, because of his sense of humor, become a favorite punching bag among the guards of the department.

The time of his deliverance was close at hand.

The carriage, as he had earlier asked the driver, stopped not at the castle but rather proceeded on to the chapel that lay half-concealed in the surrounding forest. It had once been magnificent, the spiritual center of both these hills and the valley. Now it stood alone, deserted, dejected, silent as it had been ever since the day of the massacre, the day his parents had been murdered within its walls.

_Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows._ Perpetual sorrows, indeed.

He picked up the letter and stepped out of the carriage. He nodded his thanks to the driver and walked up to the chapel's great arched doorway.

It was going according to plan now. The traitors had been taken into custody, the organization was about to be discovered, and he held within his hand a pleading letter from the virginal Queen of Sanq herself. Now the next move depended on what Odin did, and Treize knew he could trust him to fulfill his role.

He entered the chapel. All of the relics and paintings had long been removed but the lamps and the crystal chandelier that hung in the great hall had not, and from the main chapel a dull light flooded out into the corridor.

Treize smiled. He had had a feeling she would be there.

Quietly, he went to the half-empty room from which the light came. The pews had been removed as well, as had the tabernacle and the statues that had once framed the altar. The altar itself remained, however, and it was before it that he saw her. She lay on the polished wooden floor, her eyes closed and her hands clasped over her abdomen like a body awaiting cremation, or, perhaps, a temple virgin awaiting sacrifice. She wore a long white dress with one of those plunging necklines she so liked, and her hair spread out around her like an auburn corona. Where the dress drew tight over her slender legs, he could barely make out the outline of the bandages that enclosed her leg from knee to ankle.

"You're never going to find anything here," he said finally.

She did not seem startled at all by his voice. "You're wrong, sir. I already have."

He smiled and went toward her. She had been transferred here after her encounter with Heero Yuy, and had spent much of her time in the chapel, lying silently on the floor as she had been doing when he found her. She had always seemed to enjoy places of death.

He waited.

"If you listen closely enough," she said, "you can still hear them screaming, pleading. Some of them are crying." She sat up and looked at him. "They're still here, all of them. Part of the soul always remains where the body died."

"Is that so, Aphrodite?"

She smiled. "Yes."

When he said nothing else, she resumed her position on the floor. He watched her, never speaking, and wondered if indeed she heard those screams that echoed on after the corpses had been carried away.

He supposed it didn't really matter.

He took out the letter, read it again. So desperate, it was. The Queen would get her answer soon.

Yes, it could truly begin now. All the pieces were in place and all the pawns had been moved out of the way, each thinking they knew what was happening, what they were a part of. The board was, at the moment, Odin's, but somehow he thought it would be Milliardo who put the next play into action. Milliardo, the ever-beautiful, ever-loyal prince. He only hoped that the next play didn't result in the prince's death. That was simply a casualty he could not afford yet.

He sighed and went back to the decision he still had to make.

_My dear prince, I do hope you understand._

He thought that, in the end, the prince would.

**Author's Notes:** Finally, something from Treize's point of view. I've always wanted to play with his character, and although I don't know if I'll ever write a story featuring him as a main character, I certainly did enjoy writing this short little chapter to bridge the prelude and the next series of chapters, in which the action really picks up.

Despite that this fic boasts an uncharacteristic (on my part) lack of 'alternative relationships,' I couldn't resist the little hints that Treize once felt something for Zechs, and was perhaps somewhat requited. The two of them as a couple have such a beautiful appeal to me. Of course, I do think that by the Gundam Wing series, Treize is actually quite taken with Lady Une, but I also think there is still a slight infatuation with Zechs present.

Rhyn being a former opera singer was simply for my amusement. Rock music remains divine to me, but the opera has always held a very special place in my heart, and so I thought it would be rather interesting for this eccentric and slightly perverse young man to be gifted in such a difficult art.

And finally, the last truly important aspect of Aphrodite's character is revealed in this chapter. Yes, she's crazy. Well, I probably shouldn't say _crazy_, as that is such a broad description. Suffice it to say that, although she is quite intelligent, she is also quite mentally ill. She's really quite the tragic figure, I think, but then again, she is my favorite of my original characters, so I am a bit biased.

As for the letter from Relena, I'll leave that up to your imaginations for now.


	11. Chapter Ten

_A Ballad of War: Toccata and Fugue, Part I_

_Chapter Ten_

**I**

"Are you all right, Miss Relena?"

The sound of another's voice startled her out of the reverie into which she had fallen some immeasurable amount of time ago. God only knew how long she had been sitting there, staring at the cold cup of tea as though in a catatonic trance. "Pardon?"

Pagan gave a commiserating smile. He knew what was wrong with her, what she was so terrified of, though he would never voice such knowledge to her. "I asked if you were all right, Miss Relena."

She tried to return the smile. "Yes, Pagan," she sighed finally. "I'm fine, just a little tired is all. Tell me, how are the servants taking all of this now?"

"Well enough, but you mustn't worry about us, Your Majesty. Would you like me to bring you a fresh cup of tea?"

Finally she was able to force her lips to curl up into a lighter expression. "Yes, please."

Pagan nodded, took the tiny porcelain teacup from the table, and left. At his departure, she groaned quietly and slumped forward in the chair. It was hardly the posture of a sovereign, but at the moment she did not care.

"I'm utterly lost in all this," she mumbled to herself, again feeling the tears threaten. "What would you do in this position, Father?"

"Probably the exact same as you are doing," a voice answered behind her, unmistakably that of Milliardo. His footsteps sounded quietly on the marble floor as he approached her, and when he reached her chair she sat, he tentatively placed one of his strong hands on her shoulder. "There is little else that can be done in such a situation."

She looked up from the table at him. "And if you were the ruler of Sanq?"

_He would ask Miss Noin_, her mind answered, and humorlessly she realized it was true.

He didn't reply. The past two weeks had pushed him into a silence uncharacteristic even for him, and whenever he broke this silence it was usually to speak only in dark, cryptic statements. The only time she had heard him talk _to _somebody for more than two consecutive minutes lately was when he and Miss Noin had been in their private chambers upstairs and the door had been open, discussing something dealing with their lives on Mars. Even then, however, he had only spoken in his strange, calm language, but had she not heard Miss Noin answer him? Yes, and she supposed that Miss Noin was the only one who truly did understand him.

"How is Miss Noin this morning?" she asked him, not bothering to conceal the weariness in her voice.

"She was still sleeping when I left her."

She smiled faintly at his choice of words. Yes, he would consider this leaving her. God knew how close he had been to her since their arrival in Sanq, never really letting her out of his sight for more than a few moments. Miss Noin seemed to have no complaint about it, had in fact, since what had happened in Austria, seemed to have no desire to be apart from him. And subconsciously Relena knew she resented her for it.

Could Milliardo tell, she wondered, that she had begun since the incident in Austria to loathe Miss Noin's very presence? No, of course he couldn't, for if he could he would not be able to look at her like this, with all the repressed love of a brother who had for years not been allowed to even reveal his identity to her. He loved her still despite what she had become, but when given the choice between staying in Sanq with her and even being given a position among the royal advisors or leaving to fend for himself without the aid of an organization — for it was true that a good many of the preventers were quite lacking where money was concerned — with Miss Noin on the Mars colony, had he even hesitated? Of course he had not — where Miss Noin was concerned nothing stood in his way, not a war, not a kingdom, and sure as hell not his little sister.

She hadn't had time to happily discover that Miss Noin — of whom she had always in the past been fond — was pregnant. Only a few days after their arrival in Sanq the news had been released of what had happened in Austria, and her resentment had already been growing when she had overheard her brother and Miss Noin discussing whether or not it was now safe for her to stay at the palace until the child was born. And while under other circumstances Relena would have been overjoyed at learning of this, had she even for one moment felt the slightest happiness? How could she have, when the first dreadful words to form in her shocked brain had been, _She's going to take him away from me._ It was apparent now that both of them were not going to leave the palace, but was not Miss Noin already taking him away from her just when she needed him most? Day in and day out over the last two weeks she had been meeting with this advisor and that one yet no one was of any help to her, none save Milliardo, and now every time she needed to speak with him he was with Miss Noin, more concerned for her than he was his own damned kingdom—

Of course he was more concerned with her than the kingdom. What had the kingdom ever given him that he could not have found more of with Miss Noin? Which one was it that had always stood behind him even in the Eve Wars, never questioning his motives or actions and trusting him to do the right thing? He had fought enough for the kingdom, and now he was all but turning his back on it to be with her.

_Damn the child!_

She gasped at the mere thought, and before she could do anything to contain herself tears were streaking down her face and they were followed by even more tears, a salted flood of them, perhaps one for every time that thought had tried to enter her mind and she had fended it off.

Her brother knelt in front of her, his face expressionless and his eyes empty as they always were. The only time he had shown any real emotion around her had been when he was half-drunk the night of his arrival and there seemed to be no chance of seeing him like that again, for ever since he had brought Miss Noin to the palace he had avoided his nightly ventures to the wine cellar.

"What is it, Relena?" he asked, his monotonous voice giving way to some slight note of sympathy.

She fell onto his shoulder, sobbing against his neck like a child. "I don't know what to do," she cried. "Everybody wants an answer and the press wants a statement, and some are suggesting further appeals to the Council and I don't know what to do."

He said nothing. He held her until her crying subsided, and once it finally did, he released her and without a word left the room.

"I really have lost you, haven't I, Milliardo," she said in his wake. Her voice echoed hollowly in the immaculate emptiness of the room. He gave no sign that he heard her.

**II**

Neither Odin nor Treize was able to offer any good news. The first message, from Treize in Germany, was a brief, undetailed statement that said simply that the organization would begin preparation for the first invasion, which would almost undoubtedly result in the seizure of Istanbul, within the next week. Odin's message merely informed him that his presence was expected again in Vólos shortly after nightfall. He typed a reply to both and shut the computer off.

"Are you leaving again tonight?" her voice asked from behind him, not the least bit muffled by lingering sleep. He turned and saw her watching him from the bed, where she still lay enshrouded in the sheets, her eyes two pools of black oil in the shadows.

He nodded and rose from the chair.

"Which one are you going to this time?" No anger or impatience in her voice as surely there would be had this been Relena, but rather a simple concern.

He sat on the edge of the bed beside her. "Odin," he replied. "Treize is still in Germany."

She reached out of the covers and took his hand. He neither returned nor avoided the gesture and as always, she seemed to understand this.

He leaned down and kissed her. He could not explain why he had suddenly felt the need to do this or why he had actually gone through with it, but that hardly made a difference.

Lucrezia's free hand moved up from his chest and into his hair, where she, perhaps unconsciously, began curling strands of it around her fingers. Sometimes he found it strange how he never seemed to notice when and how often she did this, while if it were someone else it would have been drawn to his attention immediately.

When the kiss ended, he lay down beside her. She embraced him and he let her, and he wondered if she was aware that she was the only person with whom he did not find these things terribly awkward.

"Do you think Relena suspects your involvement yet?" she asked, her lips moving against his cheek.

"Perhaps she does."

She thought for a moment. "Do you think it's possible that she knows something about what's happening?"

He thought of the way she had reacted when she had learned that at least half of the times he had left the palace at night he had been going to Thessaloníki, of how desperately she had pleaded with him to tell her what he was doing on the peninsula even after she had known of Lucrezia's hospitalization. Was it possible that Relena knew of something that was going on there? Of course it was, and hadn't there been a letter lying on her desk the other day when he went into her office thinking she would be there, a letter written in some elegant script that for one moment looked all too familiar to him…

He must have stiffened in her arms, for she pulled back from him and cast him a questioning glance.

"It's nothing," he mumbled, and sat up.

"She thinks you're leaving her," Lucrezia continued, curling up under the covers as a child would.

He glanced at her.

"You don't see it, do you, Zechs? She needs you right now, maybe more than she ever has. She's disheartened because I seem to have taken your attention away from her and what she's going through."

His eyes narrowed in confusion. "Did she tell you this?"

She gave a soft, mirthless laugh. "No, but she would probably feel better if she did." She raised up enough to look in his eyes, and when she spoke again her voice sounded almost vulnerable. "Mentally, she's giving you the choice between herself and me."

He looked at her a moment longer, only now realizing that she was right. "I believe that choice has already been made, Luca."

A smile flickered at the corners of her mouth. Had she actually expected him to forsake her in light of all that had happened recently? Of course she had, he thought. God only knew how many times he had done it in the past.

"Luca," he said quietly. She encircled him in her arms again, the only one who had ever truly understood him, the only one whose understanding he had never resented, his Lucrezia, his refuge.

After a while, as they lay silently against each other, he was able to forget about Relena and whatever it was she wanted of him.

**Author's Notes: **I think this may possibly be the shortest chapter of this entire story, excluding the prologue, of course. Perhaps this is the chapter in which so many people seem to see some incestuous tone. I still don't see it, personally, but then again, once this thing is posted on the internet, it's in your court. Most of this chapter was simply meant as character study now all the exposition is over (at least until Chapter Sixteen), mostly for Relena. I'm merely exploiting my own opinion that she's really quite a selfish who is unaccustomed to _not_ being the center of someone's attention. The scene between Zechs and Noin is just a bit of fluff, but it's quite different from what's happened between them earlier in this story.


	12. Chapter Eleven

_Chapter Eleven_

**I**

The base was unusually quiet when he arrived; the woods surrounding it were silent as death at an hour in which there should have been heard a barely audible hum from the activities transpiring beneath the ground. It had been like this every time he had been summoned to it since the Austrian incident. Somehow he found the silence unnerving.

He found Odin Lowe waiting for him by the concealed doorway of the entrance he usually used. The sight of the man, a handsome demon in the guise of a man standing in the silent shadows, almost startled him for a moment, and Odin seemed to be aware of this.

"Good evening, Marquise," he said, his deep voice echoing quietly in the empty corridor. It was not entirely silent inside the building, Zechs realized, for from somewhere deeper within it carried the familiar metallic humming he had not been able to hear outside.

Zechs merely nodded.

"How is the situation in Sanq?"

"Improving, to say the least. The people have Relena to look to, and that seems to be keeping it under control for now."

Odin stepped away from the wall. "And the Queen?"

He hesitated. "Unsettled still," he said finally. "But that is to be expected."

Odin nodded thoughtfully. "And Miss Noin?"

"She's doing well."

"The child, I presume, is in good health still."

Zechs nodded. He had never known how Odin had found out about Lucrezia's pregnancy, but neither had he been curious about it.

Odin considered all of this for a while, then turned and motioned for Zechs to follow. "Come on, Marquise," he said. "We've wasted too much time already."

With a questioning expression and a silent tongue, he obeyed.

"Have you received word from Treize yet?" Odin asked as they walked, their path illuminated only by a dull overhead lamp.

"Yes."

"Does he still maintain the conviction that the counteroffensive is responsible for what happened in Austria?"

"No. He hasn't even mentioned it."

Another thoughtful pause. Zechs wondered if Odin was beginning to consider what he himself had.

"Our suspicions have been confirmed," Odin continued. "All of our members who were sent to Germany were apprehended. Treize's soldiers stationed here returned to Thessaloníki yesterday. Rhyn wasn't among them."

"Was he the last to confirm it?"

"Yes." After a short pause he added, "I've yet to inform Marguerite."

Zechs didn't question who this Marguerite really was to Rhyn. He no longer needed to.

Odin stopped suddenly and opened a door that Zechs had never before noticed. He assumed that it had once been concealed.

Odin disappeared into the darkness that lay, like the mouth of a cave in the deepest pit of Hell, beyond the doorway. Zechs hesitated on the threshold.

"Come on, Prince," Odin said from the darkness, either not bothering to or unable to disguise the impatience in his voice. "There is something I need to show you."

Zechs nodded and followed after him.

Neither of them spoke as they proceeded through the almost perfect blackness, down weak, narrow staircases that threatened to collapse beneath them into God-only-knew what below and through tight serpentine corridors in which could be heard the scratching-squealing-rustling of the strange, deformed creatures living within the walls.

_This should have been Treize's prison_, he thought as his eyes moved to examine the almost gothic passageway in the meager light provided, which, he realized when they came to it, came from a remarkable set of ivory candles set in a chilling golden candelabrum. _Not some well-furnished bunker in Luxembourg. This._

Odin seemed a satanic priest as he moved through the passage, blending as though naturally with the strange, dancing shadows.

At some point farther down the corridor, a large brown spider dropped from its enormous web built among the eaves of the ceiling in front of Zechs's face. It hung there for a moment, a bulbous vampire suspended on a thread of the thinnest gossamer, then dropped onto his feet. Its dark elongated fangs gleamed against the shined leather of his boots. He nudged the spider aside and went on.

At last they came to a doorway. From first glimpse it was apparent that the door could not be opened from the outside. Odin placed the palm of his hand over a glass screen to the side of the doorway. The screen flared red as a series of beams traced the lines of his hand, then each of the locks was disengaged with a hard, hollow click.

Odin pushed the door open and motioned Zechs through it.

The candlelight faded. The dusty clawing behind the walls ceased once beyond the threshold. The gothic architecture gave way to a great bunker, one of the kind of formal efficiency he had not seen since he had left OZ years ago. The walls were alight with the glow of the dozens of computer screens that lined them, flickering in the absence of the candles. The overhead light panels were blue rather than white, bathing the entire facility in a surreal shade of cobalt seen only in the deepest and most symbolic of dreams.

His eyes were pulled immediately to the center of the room, where it stood waiting for him, unrestrained, unchanged. He whispered something in Greek — he would never remember what exactly — and thought of the passageway through which they had just come, the candles and the shadows that seemed themselves living entities. A sanctuary for Treize's handmade god.

"When–"

"We received it yesterday," Odin said, too casually, too calmly to be standing before this reconstructed beast. "I gave the order for its transfer the night following the explosion in Austria."

He nodded, took a single step toward it. Another step, then another. Even after its reconstruction, he had yet to pilot the Gundam or to test the new system. Staring up at it now, standing at its feet in an awed stupor, he realized that was exactly what Odin was going to ask him to do.

"Tonight?" he asked, glancing back at Odin.

"No. In fact, tonight is your last night in Vólos."

Zechs shot him a quizzical look.

"In light of what occurred in Austria, the entire world is looking to the Sanq Kingdom, since in years past it has often emerged as a strong, truly unified nation in times of confusion and conflict. It would hardly be appropriate for it to be discovered that the Crown Prince of the kingdom is involved with one of the forces that will fight in this war that everyone knows is about to arise yet is too afraid of the fact to admit it to themselves."

Again he nodded, his brow furrowing slightly in consideration. He had wondered since Austria when his movements within the organization would be limited. "Then where will it be tested?"

He thought he heard Odin sigh. "When you consider it, Marquise, given the counteroffensive's position in the events and your own, there is only one location where we _can_ test it."

"The kingdom."

"Yes."

He looked up at the Gundam, at the lifeless emerald eyes. The Epyon, a symbol of war and nothing but war, brought within the limits of the Sanq Kingdom.

It would not be the first time such a paradox had occurred.

He nodded in agreement and turned to leave the bunker. Odin did nothing to stop him.

_My dear Relena,_ he thought as the door fell shut and locked behind him, trapping in the cold candlelit passageway with the squealing, scratching rodents and the hissing spiders. _It seems definite now that I will have to fight again in the manner of the Lightning Count to preserve your kingdom. I do hope that you understand._

Somehow, her comprehension of his actions had ceased to matter to him.

**Author's Notes:** I was wrong: _this_ is the shortest chapter of Ballad. At last the Epyon makes its official reentrance. There is a sharp contrast to the manner in which Zechs thinks of the Epyon and Heero of the Wing Zero, although I do not think it is very obvious in this chapter. Where Heero rather considers his gundam to be a stronger form of drug, Zechs almost deifies his: Heero might possess a slight fear of his own machine because of the threat of losing the stern control he has always had over himself, while Zechs might feel somewhat intimidated by his, for the Epyon often does seem to have a mind of its own.


	13. Chapter Twelve

_Chapter Twelve_

**I**

"Testing one, zero, one, two, three, f–"

"I can hear you," Zechs interrupted, the deliberating hollowness of his voice refracting back to him off the walls of the helmet.

"Pilot communications to ground are good," the boy — whom Zechs had met only briefly earlier — said to someone on the small technical crew that had been called out from behind the curtains and assembled for this. He had never seen any of them before this night, nor had most of them ever seen him in person.

"Testing two, zero, one, two…"

"Yes."

"Backup communications are good. How are you feeling, Mr. Marquise?"

This was almost enough to elicit a slight smile from him. Never, throughout his entire military career, had he been asked how he felt before piloting a mobile suit.

"Fine," he responded.

"How does the cockpit seem to you? We did our best to duplicate the original, but I'm afraid we weren't left with much to work with. The cockpit was almost completely destroyed."

"So I've heard."

There was a quiet thump as the boy set the communications device down. A moment later, it was picked up again, and a woman's voice greeted him. "Good evening, Monsieur Marquise. I would like to say that we will stop wasting your time and get on with this, but it seems that Odin has disappeared."

Zechs heard a faint, familiar chuckle, so close and so clear that it seemed to come from someone standing behind him. He turned in the seat and through the helmet's tinted portal saw nothing.

"I'm here," Odin Lowe said, apparently by way of some other communications line that had been installed without Zechs's knowledge.

There was a perplexed sigh from the woman. "Excuse me, but where exactly are you, sir?"

"Near enough to see what I need to," Odin replied, and gave no further explanation.

A brief hesitation, which Zechs found somewhat amusing. "Very well then," the woman said finally. "If you're ready, sir, we'll proceed."

"Of course."

"Monsieur Marquise?"

"Yes."

The woman gave the command to begin, and Zechs activated the Gundam, which had lain dormant all these years.

"_Epyon_," he breathed quietly, not caring that the entire technical crew as well Odin Lowe was listening. A greeting. A prayer. An offering of his soul to the machine.

They had all met earlier that evening in this field, a strategic location for what they were going to do, in the countryside outside of Newport. He had not informed Relena that he would be leaving again, yet to Lucrezia he had given as many details as he safely could. To ease her mind, he had waited until she had fallen asleep, one of her slender hands resting atop her still-flat abdomen where his child grew, before he left.

It did not take him long at all to become reacquainted with the maneuvers of the suit. Its reaction time seemed to have been enhanced in the reconstruction, and this pleased him as the mere sight of the Gundam had not. After some time he realized that he was smiling. Of course he was. He had never been Zechs Marquise in this Gundam nor had he been Milliardo Peacecraft, Crown Prince of the Sanq Kingdom. He had merely been the Lightning Count, the famed soldier who killed entire battalions in an instant, the proud killer of his own men and all who opposed him alike. He did not need his mask, behind which he had hidden for so many years, to become so careless; he needed only the Epyon, and to truly lose himself, he needed only the system.

He did not announce it when he activated the system. The first thing he became aware of once his mind was linked to it was that the self-detonation mechanism had been temporarily shut down. This didn't matter. Everything ceased to matter. For one brief moment he began to remember that this was not the original system, designed by Treize and based on Zero. For one brief moment he began to realize what he himself had done to the system, how he had enhanced it. Then, just as quickly as it had come, the moment passed.

The controls became heavier in his hands. The field around him, chosen for its landscape that would allow for testing the maneuvering capabilities of a mobile suit, became a war zone. He was aware that the images before him were not real yet he was unaware, just as he was unaware of Odin's voice ordering the technical crew to leave. It was all irrelevant to him.

"Stop it, Epyon," he growled behind his clenched teeth. But there could be no resistance. He had already given in.

Before him now, an old-model Leo. The first mobile suit he had ever piloted at the academy. Another suit just like it in front of him. The other pilot laughing in excitement, he only gripping the controls and waiting. Defeating the other pilot within seven minutes, a record for a first-time pilot in an unarmed suit. Finding the violet-haired girl walking alone in the darkness. Learning who she was and what that would have eventually meant to him, had the kingdom never fallen, his parents never died. Removing his mask in her presence days afterward and in turn revealing who he was. Fighting her, almost being defeated by her. Treize's voice: "They say you've found a worthy opponent, Milliardo." Years passing. Relena's face, wide eyes, the rebel holding her hostage laughing until he saw Zechs. Relena's confusion as she failed to recognize him. Leaving her. Leaving the academy, leaving the girl. Leaving Treize finally, only to return to him as a soldier for the OZ organization. Damn him for ever forming the organization. Damn them both for even once believing any good could come of it.

"Zechs, stop it."

The Gundams, the first one he had ever encountered. The boy who would become his greatest opponent. His greatest ally.

"Leave. All of you. Inform the other in Vólos to be prepared."

Her face again, pale and glistening from the battle she had just endured. Asking her to join him. The boy again, self-detonating.

_The pilot of that Gundam is only a boy. _

"Zechs, you're allowing the system to override your mind."

Before he left OZ, standing in Treize's main office. Treize's hand on his shoulder.

_It's almost time for the great war to begin, are you aware of that, Milliardo?_

The other Gundam pilot, the one from L5. Wufei. Fighting him, letting the Zero system control him.

_I am not your enemy. _

Sitting in a bar in some godforsaken wasteland. The three men who had followed him. Three men walk into a bar and try to end the world. Funny. Realizing that what Quinze offered was the perfect opportunity to rectify what he had done in the past. Relena's face as she begged him to step down from the White Fang, as she refused to see what he was doing.

_I am not your enemy. _

Lucrezia. Please, God, no, not this one. Crying, not yet realizing but on the verge of it. Not realizing that he wasn't strong enough to deny what the Epyon demanded of him. Rushing at her. No. Pulling against the Gundam to left just before the beam saber would have cut through her Taurus.

_I am not your enemy. _

Now the Wing Zero. The pilot. Heero. The only one who had ever truly understood what he was doing.

_I am not your enemy. _

Another year, another war. Seeing the girl again after the war ended. Treize's misguided daughter. Looking up at him with those strange blue eyes. "Prince Milliardo."

_I am not your enemy. _

Lucrezia. Relena. Heero.

_I am not your enemy. _

_Are you saying that—_

_Yes, I'm saying that Miss Noin is pregnant. _

_I am not your enemy. _

_I am not—_

"I am not your enemy," he gasped, tearing the helmet from his head. "Relena--"

Two hands, almost inhumanly strong, prying him from the seat. The Epyon had collapsed; he was lying against the chair rather than sitting in it.

"I am not your enemy. Please, God, I am not your enemy."

"Prince, you're going to have to stand. I'm not carrying you back to the palace."

He tried to do as the voice told him, could not. The second attempt was more successful.

"I am not your enemy," he repeated as he was assisted to the ground.

If the voice responded, he never knew, for the moment his feet touched the ground, he lost consciousness.

**II**

_(The Devil and the Angel Part I)_

It was past midnight by the time Relena left her, claiming satisfaction with her excuses for Zechs's absence. In all honesty she no longer cared whether Relena believed her or not. She merely wished that the girl would realize she wasn't the only one affected by him.

Lucrezia did not rise when Relena stood to leave as she had become accustomed to doing while serving as Captain of the Imperial Guard, nor did she walk her out into the hallway. She supposed she could blame her pregnancy for her apathy were she not growing sick of making these incessant excuses, excuses for herself, for Zechs, for the organization, even for the child who had yet to do anything that required an excuse. It was all getting so disgusting.

She had left this room only once today, to receive a phone call that she had hoped would be from Zechs, and she had retreated back to it immediately after. Relena was worried about her for this, she knew, but somehow in light of the day's events, she didn't care. She couldn't.

Zechs had not returned until shortly after midnight the previous evening, quiet and brooding as he almost always was, but in his usually empty eyes had been the expression of one who has just seen a ghost. She later found out how true this was.

Between sips of bourbon he had delivered to her a monotonous account of the Epyon's reconstruction and of his journey through the maze of underground passageways that seemed, from his description, something more suiting of a gothic horror novel than a military base, to find the forgotten Gundam, Treize's handmade war god. He stopped drinking long enough to tell her of the test of the Gundam and its new system and where that test would occur, then polished off the glass — not his first since his return that evening — in the midst of informing her that he would again be leaving her for a while. She had not objected to what he was going to do. She understood the necessity of it. She had, however, asked him what he had done to the system, to which he replied, "Nothing that I won't be able to handle."

And so she had done as she always had in the past whenever he was given a new mission, she had nodded and said she understood, all the while masking her desperate fear for him. It was all she could do.

He had left that morning to meet with the faceless Odin Lowe in a city twenty miles north of Vólos. She had not heard from him since his departure.

Early in the afternoon a knock had come at the door of their suite. She had leapt from the desk where she had been composing a letter to the Prevention Organization and found Pagan on the other side, his voice and manner calm and polite but his face alive with obvious confusion.

"Pardon me, Miss Noin," he had said, bowing slightly. "You have received a rather frantic telephone call."

Her heart sank into her stomach, and unconsciously one hand went there as well, where her unborn child rested. "Zechs," she began, and Pagan cut her off.

"No, Miss Noin, the caller identified herself as one Midii Une."

She wasted no time with relief. She rushed past Pagan and ran down the hall, to the next wing and into the library, where the nearest working phone was.

Une had not given her a chance to say anything. The moment she heard the click of the phone being picked up she asked, in a frenzied voice to which Pagan's description could not have done justice, "Noin, is that you?"

"I'm here," she replied calmly while her mind was in chaos.

"I can't stay here, Noin," Une stammered. "I'm returning to the colony tonight. I have to. I can't stay here."

"What's happened?"

"I — he never told me," she babbled, and in the background Lucrezia though she heard a door open and another voice speak. Une seemed oblivious to this. "He knew all this time and he never told anyone."

"Who are you talking about?"

Une stuttered for almost a minute then cried out, "Zechs! He knew all this time that His-His-His Excellency–"

_Oh shit,_ she thought, and said under her breath. This had been inevitable, she supposed, and had she not been so worried about Zechs it would have struck her harder.

"His Excellency is alive," Une finally finished, and as she did the phone was taken away from her.

"Miss Noin," a voice greeted her, a voice she immediately recognized as Trowa's. "I am escorting President Une back to the Martian colony. The rest of the organization needs not hear of why their President is suddenly leaving them. Can you see to it that no suspicion is raised within the Sanq Kingdom?"

"Of course," she agreed, knowing what he meant for her to do but unsure of how credible she would seem when she did it.

"All the others will stay here and continue the investigation of the events in Austria. A proper leader has been selected to oversee the investigation, but if need arises, do you think you could oversee it, Miss Noin?"

"Yes." She had understood immediately what was implied by a 'proper leader.' A person had been found within the organization who knew of what was really happening on Earth and would ensure that no one learned of Odin Lowe's existence or his hand in the events of the upcoming battle that would arise partly because of the incident in Austria. "One more thing, Trowa," she said before he hung up.

On the other end, the silence of waiting. It was well known to her by now that Trowa never spoke an unnecessary word.

"Will she be all right?"

He seemed to be considering this for some time, then at last he spoke. "In time she will be. I'm going to stay with her on the colony for a while. She should not be alone right now."

"Of course." She laid the phone back down in its cradle. Now, sitting huddled on the bed, hours after the conversation, she wondered if, had the situation involved herself rather than Une, Zechs would have done the same for her. The thought plagued her mind, as such things were prone to do with pregnant women, and she almost convinced herself that he would not before she realized what she was doing. Of course he would have. He already had, when, at a moment's notice, he had abandoned what he was doing on Earth to go to her when she had been hospitalized, even if his actions prior to that day suggested otherwise. She only hoped that it wasn't out of obligation.

_Stop it, _she told herself silently, forcing the thought out of her head. _You're pregnant and you're concerned about him, but that is no reason to start doubting him. Not now. _

She tried to busy her mind with thinking of what she would have to say to do as Trowa had asked and prevent 'suspicion from being raised' in the kingdom, which meant, really, that she would have to release a statement to the kingdom's press on the abrupt departure of the Prevention Organization's President. She was not surprised that Trowa had asked her to do this rather than Zechs. She was fully aware of how little information on both Treize's organization and the counteroffensive could be made known to the public, and despite the kingdom's quick acceptance of the return of their Prince, the people would now be less likely to believe him now that his aforementioned return seemed too timely and given his record for, in the past, involving himself in every war possible. Her own case was none too better, but somehow that would do less to discredit her plausibility than it would Zechs's. Perhaps it was as Wufei had once said to her: the public will more readily accept the word of a woman than it will that of a man. She thought of how quickly the colonies had accepted OZ with Lady Une as its representative. Had it been a man, even Treize, as charming and charismatic as he could be when necessary, would the colonies have hesitated then? Perhaps, but then perhaps not.

However, this did not help her any in deciding how she would field the press's questions.

She sighed and fell back against the pillows. "Zechs," she said aloud, sounding more than slightly worried in the empty confines of their bedroom, "you would kill yourself and leave me for your great meaningless war, wouldn't you?"

As if in response, she heard the faint sound of a door slamming down the corridor and the sudden echoing of two sets of footsteps, one man almost running while the other seeming to be dragged. She lay there listening to them, feeling her heart pound in her chest with every step taken, until they stopped outside the parlor door.

_Please, God, don't let it be what I think it is. _

She rose from the bed and went to the door, listening. Two voices spoke on the other side, and though she couldn't derive a clear word from it all, one sounded impatient and demanding while the other was quieter, frightened.

The voices ceased. Someone pounded on the door, insistently, yet it was not quite ominous. Lucrezia threw the door open and was not astonished at all to see the devil himself standing there.

"Miss Noin, I presume," he said. He was years older than Lucrezia, yet somehow ageless, and rather handsome in a dark way that in centuries past would have driven even the most respectable of women mad. He was dressed completely in black and over his dark clothes he wore long black overcoat.

Beside him, as if in some mocking tableau, the devil held an angel.

Zechs was still standing, but only because of the man's arm locked around his waist, holding him up. Likewise Zechs's arm was draped over the man's shoulders. His head was bowed and he seemed to be mumbling to himself, oblivious to everything around him.

"Zechs," she breathed, half in relief and half in horror. He looked wildly up at her. His eyes were wide and bloodshot; his face was contorted in an expression of crazed fear. His platinum hair was damp and matted to his forehead with sweat, and a few strands, she saw, were reddened with blood.

"I'm sorry to disturb you so late in the evening,' the man said, "or perhaps I should say so early in the morning, but I thought you might want this."

She looked up at him incredulously and could only move aside numbly from the door.

The man began guiding Zechs into the room. He received no resistance at first, but when they were almost completely through the doorway, Zechs clutched onto the man and refused to go any further.

"It's dark in here," he whispered, and he did not sound like Zechs Marquise but rather like a small, frightened child. "It's so dark."

Lucrezia started toward the lamp on the desk to adjust its brightness, unable to do anything else.

"Don't," the man said without taking his eyes from Zechs. "The light is sufficient. He's only hallucinating."

She looked at him, feeling her eyes widen and her jaw become unhinged.

"Please," Zechs whimpered, pulling closer to him. "It's so dark in here." A large tear spilled down his face.

"Dear God," she whispered.

The nameless devil in black glanced at her. "Please calm down, Miss Noin. It won't do to have you both like this and if you don't you may very well bring on another near-miscarriage." He returned his eyes to Zechs. "Come on, Marquise, you've made it this far, only a little farther."

Zechs didn't move.

The man sighed. "Very well then, up you go." He lifted Zechs up into his arms as though he weighed nothing at all and carried him into the parlor that joined the bedroom, setting him down in an armchair. Zechs released him reluctantly and huddled against the back of the chair, whimpering softly to himself and crying silently.

Lucrezia was only now able to speak again. She caught the man by the wrist as he turned away from Zechs and demanded, "What the hell did you people do to him?"

He did not seem angered by this. "We did nothing to him. He did this to himself."

"What do you mean?"

He removed his wrist from her grasp and went toward the door. She ran after him, darting in front of him and blocking the doorway of the bedroom. Her eyes met his finally, and she felt that he was looking into her mind, into the depths of her very soul.

"You're him, aren't you?" she asked, her voice not quite as acidic as it had been. "You're Odin Lowe."

"I'm afraid I must answer to that name, yes."

"What happened to him?"

"Miss Noin, there is no time–"

"Please tell me."

"Ask him in the morning if you can get him to sleep the rest of the night. He should be coherent when he wakes."

He tried to pass her. She did not move.

"Miss Noin, please," he said patiently. "Unless you want to draw from the kingdom's treasury to have the Prince released from prison, you will allow me to leave."

"What?"

"To put it simply and quickly, Miss Noin, there is a rather interesting weapon lying in the open within the kingdom. This rather interesting weapon just so happens to be a mobile suit, and this mobile suit just happens to be a Gundam. There are only two Gundams left in existence. One of them has not been seen since its supposed destruction and disappearance during the Mariemaia incident and can no longer be traced to anyone. The other is the Epyon, which can only be traced to the Prince. And after what occurred in Austria, if this Gundam is seen and identified while I should have been moving it, the matter will not be taken lightly."

She stared at him a moment longer, then silently moved from the doorway. He crossed through the parlor and exited into the corridor. His running footsteps echoed only briefly then faded altogether, as though he had been nothing more than a dark specter.

She locked the door behind him and returned to Zechs. He had not moved from the chair and seemed to take no note of her.

"What have you done to yourself, Zechs?" she whispered, kneeling in front of him.

As if in response he said, "I don't want to be here. It's so dark in here." The voice and the frightened eyes of a child. "Zechs–"

"Don't leave me alone in here."

"I won't," she said, though she knew he really was not aware of her presence. She fought back the tears that threatened to come and bit into her lip to stop it from trembling.

He stirred in the chair and suddenly his eyes widened again. He merely stared ahead for several minutes, then began, "I think I'm going–" His voice was cut off by a convulsion. Lucrezia jumped to her feet as the convulsions continued, and she realized that he was heaving. He groaned as she tried to help him to his feet but eventually was able to stand, though he was still heaving. She guided him toward the adjacent bathroom, stopping only for a moment to turn on the lights. Once inside, he refused to any further than the marble sink.

"Zechs, come on," she pleaded, unable to force him to move forward, lacking the strength of the man who had carried him into the palace. He remained oblivious to her. Finally she was able to help him lean over the sink, where he laid his head against the cold marble as the heaving continued. There was nothing on his stomach apparently but the convulsions went on unabated. At last the convulsions did bear a result, though, and when Zechs's head moved enough so that Lucrezia was provided with a view into the sink she again felt her heart stop. The white marble was streaked crimson with blood, glistening red under the pale light as it rolled slowly down toward the drain. Zechs's quivering lower lip was stained with it.

The image rose unbidden to her mind of him being carried into the gathering of tents that served as a makeshift medical facility after his first time in the cockpit of the Tallgeese, weak and gasping, blood trickling from the corners of his mouth. A heart attack, it had been determined. A heart attack at the age of nineteen. He had recovered fully from it, and all who had examined him afterward had proclaimed that his heart was in wonderful condition, that there was nothing that should prevent him physically from continuing his career as a soldier. No more had ever been said about it, nor had it even been mentioned when Zechs had reemerged in outer space in the Epyon. They had all but forgotten about it completely.

She stared at the blood in the sink as though it were something conjured at a sorcerer's incantation, some hideous demon sent from the deepest pit of Hell. It had always simply been assumed that his recovery truly was full and there could be no relapse, that the great Lightning Count could handle anything. But never had he been like this, never, not even in the Eve Wars when the system had briefly taken his mind—

She could no longer hold the tears back. "Zechs, please stop doing this to yourself," she said, tentatively touching his hand. "Please stop it."

If he heard her, he gave no sign. A shudder wracked his body but the convulsions seemed to have stopped. After another minutes of staring listlessly at his own blood, he backed away from the sink, continued this silent retreat until his back touched the corner of the wall. He slid down the wall like a limp rag doll and drew his knees up as if in defense, hugging them to this chest.

"Help me," he pleaded, a lost, desperate child tormented by the demons of his own mind. "Please help me. It's so dark in here."

"Zechs." She stifled a sob and wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. In the corner, huddled and lost in his own dark world, Zechs was crying again too, sobbing quietly into his own hands. Two tears slipped through his fingers and rolled down the length of his wrist. She couldn't bear to see him like this, watching helplessly, unable to do anything to comfort him. It was a torture worse than her own death. Yet she could not leave him. She could not, though somewhere within her mind she wanted to. Even if he was not aware of her being there with him, she couldn't leave him in this state, alone and terrified and pleading. She wouldn't.

Lucrezia withdrew a washcloth from the cabinet above the sink, dampened it with hot water. She approached his sobbing huddled figure carefully as not to alarm him when she touched him, and he gave no resistance as she wiped the blood from his face. She lifted his hair and wiped the drying sweat from his brow, then likewise washed the blood from his hair. Running her fingertips through it she located the source of the blood, two thin, shallow cuts that lay in the middle of a large bruise on his scalp, most likely an injury sustained while wearing the Epyon's helmet.

She kissed his forehead and held him against her while he cried quietly and trembled. He continued to whisper to himself but she could barely hear him, and if he were still pleading for help in the dark, she would rather not hear.

Several hours passed with them like this. His crying gradually began to subside as did the trembling, but she did not let go of him.

At some point his eyes came back into focus. He looked up at her and she saw that the redness was gone and his pupils were no longer dilated, yet he still did not seem to see her.

"I didn't mean to," he said finally. The childish tone had left his voice but he still sounded so desperate. "I swear I didn't mean to."

In silent response she again kissed his forehead.

"I didn't mean to become this. Relena would hate me if she knew who I am and what I am to her. Father would hate me if he were still alive."

"Zechs, don't."

His eyes went to hers again. No, he could not see her, she realized, but please, God, this had to be an improvement. "I wanted to look out for her," he said, his voice shaking although his body no longer was. "I left her at the academy so I could look out for her."

Lucrezia realized he was talking about her and unconsciously her arms tightened around him.

"She was always trying to be second, in order to make me look better. If I left she wouldn't have to do that anymore. She can't be brought into the war. She has to stay as uninvolved as possible."

Was he talking to himself or to someone he saw in whatever vision now haunted his troubled mind?

"She cannot be tainted by any of this," he continued, then broke down into incoherent mumbling.

"Zechs, please stop it," she begged, feeling the tears threaten her eyes again. _Tainted, yes, my love, but tainted for you, tainted by war in order to stay close to you, to remain always at your side._ "Stop this."

He was just as oblivious to her voice as he had been earlier. "I do love her–"

"Zechs, please don't. Don't do this."

"—but I'm too much of a damned coward to say it."

She held him closer against her, laid her head over his. He allowed her to do this. Perhaps he could not even feel it, so gone was he from his body.

As dawn's pale gray light began to creep in from behind the closed curtains, Zechs at last fell asleep. Lucrezia released him and stretched his unconscious body out on the floor to prevent him being even sorer when he woke. She still refused to leave him. She knelt by him as the sun rose over the kingdom, running her fingers absently through his long, platinum hair as she had so loved to ever since they were hardly more than children, as she so often did now as he slept.

After the sun had long been risen and the afternoon began to wane, she lay down and slept beside him, resting her head on his chest with one arm draped loosely over him, her fingers still curled in his hair.

She was awakened a few hours later by a knock at the door. Quietly, without disturbing the sleeping prince, she rose from the floor and crossed the joint living room and bedroom, and went into the parlor. The antique clock on the wall informed her that the hour was after 8:00.

By this time, Lucrezia had forgotten what her cryptic midnight visitor had warned about the possible imprisonment of Sanq's prince.

She would not need to remember it, however. On the other side of the door stood Pagan, smiling cordially and holding a cluttered silver tray in his hands. She returned the smile for whatever it was worth (she was quite aware of how weary she must look) and ushered him inside.

"Good evening, Miss Noin," he said warmly. "You were missed at breakfast this morning and again at lunch." He started toward the room adjacent to the bedroom. Lucrezia started to fabricate an excuse but he silenced her with a quiet laugh. "No need to worry, Miss Noin. I am aware enough of the situation to understand."

She looked at him, disbelieving.

Again he laughed. "No, Miss Noin, I only learned of these events last night. I too had quite an interesting encounter after midnight." He went to the oaken table and set the tray down. "This is for you, Miss Noin," he said as though he had not been beginning an intriguing matter only moments ago. "A portion of tonight's dinner was reserved for you, and I believe that Miss Lanka provided more than you usually eat. You have not eaten all day, Miss Noin, and even if you don't need it, the child does."

She nodded and sat down at the table. She knew he would not leave until he saw her eat.

She noticed that she had left the bathroom door open, and though she had turned off the lights after Zechs had fallen asleep, he was still clearly visible, lying as though dead on the floor.

"Do not worry about the Prince," Pagan said, watching her as she lifted the fork to her mouth. "I suspect I know what has happened, and that is why I prevented Miss Relena from coming here today."

Lucrezia offered him the chair across from her. After a minute or more of coaxing, he took it.

"I should explain," he began, as she listened while consuming of everything that was on the tray. "I was awakened late last night by the sound of two voices outside the servants' entrance. I did not recognize one of them, but the other I immediately placed as that of Prince Milliardo. I went to the door and opened it, only to find two men, one of whom I had never seen before and the other one the man who is presently lying on the bathroom floor. The former was trying to coax the Prince into telling him where to find you, and the Prince was stammering and not sounding at all like himself. I let them in for the Prince's sake, and when I saw what state he was in I provided to the other one what information I could. The man returned minutes later without the Prince, and therefore I assumed that he had indeed found you. He was about to depart when I offered to return him to where he seemed to so urgently need to be. Do not ask me, Miss Noin, I don't know why I did. But after a moment he accepted. I believe, Miss Noin, that he only did so because of how little time he had to waste. He spoke only to tell me where to go and it was not very far from here, but he seemed to me the kind of man who has all of his affairs gathered and knows precisely what he is doing at all times."

Lucrezia nodded.

"Miss Noin, you are not eating enough. We arrived at his destination, not very far from here, as I've said, and though it was very dark I saw from the car what appeared to be a fallen mobile suit. After some time of studying it, I identified it as none other than the Gundam Epyon. I said nothing to the man about it, of course, nor did he to me. I trust the situation was taken care of, however, for there has been no mention of it."

"Did he tell you his name?"

"Yes, I believe it was that of a Norse deity, Odin, if I'm not mistaken." Pagan thought for a minute, then added, "He wanted me to deliver a message to you, Miss Noin. He sends his apologies if he inconvenienced you. He says he did not want to return the Prince to you in the state he was in, but at the time he was left with no other choice."

"I understand."

Pagan smiled and rose. "Will you be needing anything else, Miss Noin?" She shook her head. "Thank you, Pagan."

He nodded and left the suite.

Zechs began to stir an hour later. Lucrezia had long since returned to him by then and sat by his side while his former silence gave way to a series of sleep-muffled groans and his stillness to restless shifting. She could not take this as either a good or bad sign: he was often like this as he awoke, especially if in sleep he had suffered from a nightmare.

After several minutes of this, the shifting ceased. He lay perfectly still again, then slowly his eyes opened.

She waited.

He turned his eyes to her. She could not tell if he was really seeing her now, and she was too afraid to speak to him, fearing that if he were still in the same condition he had been in last night, the sound of her voice would only trigger his own desolate fear.

"Luca," he said finally, squinting to see her through the wispy shroud of his hair.

She couldn't repress the grateful smile that lit her face when he spoke. "I'm here," she said as calmly as she could manage.

He tried to get up. He groaned through clenched teeth when he lifted his head from the floor as though it pained him to do so.

She helped him to his feet and had to steady him at first when his legs threatened to collapse beneath him. He was still dazed but coherent now, and disorientation was to be expected after what he had endured.

"How did I get here?" he mumbled, surveying the room and realizing where he was.

"You were carried," she replied. He looked at her incredulously. "By Odin Lowe."

His brow furrowed as though in concentration. At last he merely sighed and leaned back against the wall, pressing a hand to his forehead like a man suffering from a hangover. "Relena–"

"She doesn't know. She had finally gone to sleep when he brought you here and Pagan has been keeping her from coming here all day."

He opened one eye and looked at her. "All day?"

"You've been practically unconscious for more than twelve hours now." She watched him as he considered this, then asked, "How do you feel?"

He grunted and after a moment replied, "I'm fine. Are you all right, Luca?"

"Why would I not be?"

He shook his head. She thought of all the bruises that covered his scalp beneath the mask of his hair and only now did it occur to her that he could have sustained something more than a minor head injury.

"What did I do last night?" he asked, interrupting her thoughts. "If I have only been unconscious for twelve hours?"

She hesitated. She had been afraid he would ask this, but the anticipation had hardly been enough to provide her with an answer. "You were in a state of shock," she said finally, leaving it at that. It was a suitable description, she supposed, but still after what she had seen him go through, it seemed foolishly inadequate.

He merely nodded, just as he had when an OZ-employed physician had informed him that what he had suffered in the Tallgeese was a heart attack. Would it never really concern him, she wondered, how much damage he inflicted upon himself, as long as it was only himself he inflicted it upon?

Silently she guided him out of the bathroom, easing him down into a chair at the table, where she pushed in front of him the small tray Pagan had brought only a few minutes ago for when the Prince awoke. Zechs looked up at her when she told him this and gave a weak, almost amused smile. Atop the tray were two glasses, one of water and another of orange juice, and a porcelain mug of coffee. He drank the entire glass of water in one long swallowing gulp then as he started the coffee he began questioning her for more of the answers she didn't want to have to provide.

"Did Odin tell you what happened?"

She sat down beside him. "No. He said you would be coherent enough to tell me when you awoke."

He finished the coffee and moved on to the orange juice. When at last he realized that she was waiting for an answer he said simply, "It was a miscalculation within the system."

She stifled a scoff. A mere miscalculation would have only required that he exert more force and concentration against the system, not resulted in the trembling, crying childlike wreck he had been last night.

After several minutes he asked, "Did I say anything last night, Luca?"

She couldn't answer. Had he said anything last night? Of course he had. He had pleaded for help and cried that it was too dark wherever he was, and then he had begged not to be left alone in the darkness, and then as if that were not enough he had heaved until he had coughed up blood and then curled up in the corner like a terrified child. Had he said anything?

"You said that you love me," she replied finally, not knowing why, not even intending on replying at all.

"Did I?" He looked down quickly as though to guard some unwanted expression. He raised the glass to his lips, set it down again without drinking. "I do, Luca," he said when the silence became too much between them. "I know that I–"

"Zechs, don't–"

He silenced her with a kiss. The suddenness of it shocked her so much that at first she was unable to do anything, and while she merely allowed his lips to cover hers he pulled her up from the chair and lifted her into his arms. She laughed softly and returned the kiss, trying to push from her mind the memories of the night before, all the images that threatened to resurface, images of the blood running over his lips, of him huddled against the wall and hiding his tears behind his hands, of him clutching onto her as though he were drowning and she was the only thing that could keep him afloat. _Please don't think of that anymore, not now, never please—_

He held on to her now almost as tightly as he had last night but in a different way, one she knew well by now. This had again become a relatively frequent occurrence between them since they had returned to Sanq together, almost something of a ritual.

He guided her toward the bed as she kissed him, unable to let go of him as she had been unable to touch him only a second ago. She was overcome in those moments that always preceded this act, these moments in which she could always feel some hesitation within him, in which they silently made the transition from being the closest of friends for whatever that was worth to lovers in every form, by a feeling quite like that of gratitude. And gratitude it was, a bittersweet kind, gratitude that he had been returned to her regardless of how it had happened, gratitude that whatever he had seen inside the confines of his mind could no longer harm him, gratitude that whatever the hell had happened last night, he was still in one piece. It was the same gratitude that she had felt so many times in the past when he had been given a new mission that was especially dangerous and had been returned to her unscathed.

He pulled back the covers and lowered her down onto the bed. She was still fully dressed, both of them were, but this had never proven a hindrance to them in the past.

She pressed her lips to his cheek as her hands fumbled to remove his clothes, just as his did to her. Loose stands of his platinum hair fell onto her bared shoulders, brushing against her as lightly as feathers on the wings of an angel. At first they merely lay against each other, she kissing him still, letting her lips travel over his beautiful, calm face as his hands traveled slowly, almost lazily over her body. Her lips found his again and she embraced him, and for those moments it seemed to be not a mutual surrender but rather that he was surrendering completely to her. She kissed him once more and slowly began tangling her hands in his hair as he merely let her do whatever she wanted.

_Yes, my prince, please just let me, don't question what happened last night, don't even try to remember it, don't tell me what really occurred with the Epyon because I don't wan to know, just please stay here with me like this always, let me, let me—_

And he did, for a while at least, allowing her to move against him as he merely submitted to her. She at last elicited a low sigh from him as she guided him to seal this act, and slowly, almost hesitantly, he entered her as her arms encircled him. She was reminded of a more innocent night in Florence, seven years ago now, and how close this had come to happening then.

They committed this act twice that evening, the first time slowly and quietly, their sighs and pleading moans nothing more than whispers, the second quickly and desperate, and yet their voices were hushed still, as though to release anything louder than a whisper would be desecration.

Sleep, afterward, came easily and dreamlessly to them both.

**Author's Notes:** The first section of this chapter is one of my favorite scenes from Ballad. As some of the lovely reviewers have pointed out, I do love torturing Zechs, and cockpit systems make such wonderful torture devices for certain characters. Most of the scenes in Zechs's little freakout are recognizably from the GW series. The references to Lucrezia are from another fan fiction I once started to write detailing Zechs and Noin's years at Lake Victoria. The reference to Relena being taken hostage comes from her chapter of the Episode Zero manga. For those of you who have read the manga, wasn't Zechs just so adorable in those huge sunglasses?

I made it twelve chapters into a story before the sex scene; I do believe that's a record for me. This is probably the most undetailed sex scene I have ever written. Several of my fan fiction stories and most of my original ones delve into the world of erotica at some point, so reading this chapter was rather amusing for me. This is the last bit of sweetness for a while, though; after this there is much more interest in making war rather than love.


	14. Chapter Thirteen

_Chapter Thirteen_

**I**

He walked through the frozen-laughing masses alone, hands shoved into his pockets, face half-hidden by his long platinum hair. It briefly occurred to him as he walked that this was the first day since he had taken Lucrezia to the Sanq Kingdom that he had spent almost completely alone. The thought was strangely relieving.

Relena was unaware of his departure, as he had intended. He had not seen her since she had awakened him that morning to bid him to come to breakfast with her. Her insistent knocking on the door and calling for him had awakened Lucrezia as well, who had mumbled, as they retrieved their clothes, rather crossly, "What the hell is she thinking?" He still debated on whether or not he thought Relena truly did want him to choose between herself or Lucrezia, but regardless of that, Relena remained civil to her, courteous when necessary, which was more than could be said for her actions toward Zechs. She wanted something from him, some assurance that he did not know how to provide. Perhaps it was merely sympathy she desired from him. If that were the case, he could offer only silent commiseration.

He had at last grown accustomed to the change in her.

Relena had disappeared sometime after breakfast, and had returned early in the evening, saying nothing of her errand, according to the conversation he had overheard amongst a trio of servants. She had afterward locked herself within the confines of her royal chambers, refusing to come out even at his request.

His mind was haunted by thoughts of a letter he had once glimpsed lying upon her desk. He could not see it clearly within his mind, nor could he find a single reason for his subconscious insistence upon it. He tried in futility to forget about it.

Lucrezia had been called away soon after Relena to repeat to the kingdom's press on the recent return of the Preventer Organization's President to the Mars base. This had consumed most of her day, leaving her weary and in desperate need of sleep. Her pregnancy was now truly beginning to have an effect on her. She had been almost asleep on a sofa in the library when he had left. As he passed her she had mumbled groggily, without opening her eyes, "Where are you going?"

He had paused, only half-startled by her voice. "I need some air," he replied after a moment. What a pathetic response.

"Would you like me to wait for you?"

"No. You should rest."

She gave a slight nod and fell silent. He watched her for a few minutes, until he was sure she had fallen asleep. He whispered her name and when she failed to respond, he knelt before the sofa and, for a reason unknown even to himself he brushed her violet hair aside and kissed the side of her face. She stirred beside him, not as completely asleep as he had thought, and said, laughing softly, "Your affection is requited, my Prince."

And so he had left the palace, undaunted by the cold air and the sighing wind that seemed to have plagued the northern regions of the kingdom for the past few days. The weather was not so foreboding here, however. It was often said that the merchant district of Newport never slept, and at the moment he desired nothing more than the anonymity of such a place. The hour was now drawing near to midnight and still the district was alive and bustling, burning with the light of hundreds of lamps and lanterns, ringing with the intermingled sounds of a multitude of simultaneous conversations and laughter. He was able to blend in perfectly here, despite his signature expressionless face, despite his name, his title. Even his long, pale hair was not a distinctive feature here; he was hardly the only man in the kingdom, in the city even, who wore his hair in this manner, though the others had waned considerably since the kingdom's second collapse in AC 195. During the rise of the Peacecraft monarchy, five generations before the current Queen, the first of the family's rulers had grown his hair to his waist in order to both oppose and mock military regulations. This single act had become a trend amongst the people of the kingdom and surrounding pacifist nations, and although by the time his father had assumed the throne the old military standards were no longer in effect, it had continued as a tradition. He seemed only another follower of that old tradition now, simply another face in a crowd of thousands.

Alone again, as it seemed he always was. Alone although he was surrounded completely by thousands of people. Unknown, unnamed, a prince without a title. The utter solitude comforted him, provided him with a solace that he could find nowhere else. Not even held within the warm, sweet embrace of Lucrezia's arms had he been able to find this, for even as they lay together in that act which they knew only with each other, he had been aware, as his hand rest gently over her abdomen where his child grew within her, of how much he had hurt her in the past, of how much he could still hurt her regardless of what he felt for her. Alone he could hurt no one. Lucrezia. Relena. The child that would be given to him and Lucrezia if no further complication arose. The people of the kingdom, the Earth, the colonies. He could cause no harm to any of them in this self-imposed isolation. He no longer had to act as a soldier; he no longer had to act as a prince. He had only to act as some nameless vagrant, unrecognized, unimportant. Simply another war-scarred fool waiting to die.

He found himself thinking of his days at Lake Victoria, of the nights in which he had discreetly left the grounds and wandered into the surrounding forests, in order to further isolate himself from the constant presence of warfare. This had already become a routine with him by the time he had entered the academy; living in the German estate of Treize Kushrenada's wealthy, disillusioned family, he had often, to Treize's knowledge, left the house at night for the same reasons. He had always found it easier to leave than to press on with his efforts. It had been easier for him to leave Relena in a safe place and leave the kingdom on foot the night of their parents' assassination than to remain there, and that was only at the age of six years. He had only become weaker as the years progressed.

_I still haven't acknowledged that I'm one of the weak people. _

_Will you ever?_ he often wondered of himself. _Will you ever truly acknowledge it, or will you continue fighting under the guise of one who is strong?_

The answer was simple and instant. He would continue fighting under a proverbial mask until it seemed that he was no longer needed, perhaps in some faraway time of peace. It was indeed easier for him to continue and avoid transition than to pursue one.

A distant chime tolled the hour of midnight. Soon he would have to return to the palace, to all the reminders of all the pain he had inflicted in these most recent years. He would always return, as a dog to its own vomited waste, to the blood he had shed.

However, he would not return yet. He would allow Lucrezia to sleep a while longer, free from his worrisome presence, would allow Relena to carry on with her private endeavors that she would tell none about but in which she nonetheless desired his assistance. Sometimes he wondered when they would finally come to see that he was nothing more than a burden to them, really, often a willing one, because ultimately, he was too selfish not to be. It was his own selfishness that had brought him back to Lucrezia over the years after every mission that had separated them; his own selfishness that had enabled him to allow her to always place second in the academy, leaving him as the top student; his own selfishness and perhaps nothing more than that, for he hadn't been able to stop her from losing to him every time, for fear that if he did, it would lead to their separation. It was because of his own selfishness that he had asked her to leave the academy to fight those who would become their allies with him. It was through his own selfishness that he had asked her to come to Mars with him. And it was through his own selfishness that he could not leave Relena to fend for herself, though he knew that would probably be in her best interest. He had loved them both for too long to ever permanently and completely leave them.

Or perhaps these thoughts were only phantoms of the guilt that plagued his mind, and the underlying fear that he had endangered them all.

He had inadvertently begun to disassociate himself from Treize's organization since the discovery in Austria, and he feared that Treize was beginning to become suspicious of him. The messages sent from Thessaloníki had become vague and nondescript, almost utterly uninformative, and he had not been summonsed to the base since he had been asked to test the Gemini, two days prior to the Austrian incident. He had spoken briefly of this development — or, rather, lack of development — to Lucrezia and to Odin Lowe, and both of them, one showing concern and the other not, both in their respective manners, had advised him to exercise extreme caution. It was through exercising caution that he had raised the organization's suspicions, but he told neither of them this.

_You stole my redemption, you princely bastard. _Odin Lowe's first words to him.

"It seems I have made quite a habit of that over the years, doesn't it," he mumbled to himself as he pressed on through the crowd, unnoticed by any as he walked, a lone prince desiring exile. How many times had he stolen the redemption of a person who was as nameless and irrelevant to him as he was to these people, as Odin had been to him before that long ago evening? How many of the lives had he taken in the past could have gone on to accomplish something, even if only for themselves? How many lives had he ended, how many families had he destroyed, as his own had been so many years ago? How many times had he killed Relena? Lucrezia? How many times had created another Milliardo Peacecraft?

He had stolen their redemption, yes, staining his hands in their blood, drinking it down like a wine that could never truly quench his unholy thirst, but perhaps he had bestowed clemency upon all those whose lives he had taken, for he could do nothing more to harm any of them. The ones whose lives he had only ruined were still being hurt by him. Relena could not stand upon her own two queenly feet when it came to matters of the kingdom as long as he was around. She would have been better off had he never reentered her life, if he would have allowed himself to see her personally only once, when she had been taken hostage the first of several times at the age of eleven. If he hadn't been so damned selfish, perhaps he could have allowed himself that one singular encounter and there ended his involvement with the princess.

_My dear little sister,_ he thought, smiling slightly to himself, _you were given too much to carry upon your shoulders much too soon._

And Lucrezia, if he had never come back into her life after the Eve Wars, where would she have been now? Still on the colonies, trying again to find her new identity? Or perhaps she would have returned to Italy, her native country, although she accredited the Sanq Kingdom as such. Perhaps she would have even reclaimed her title, which she had forsaken as defiantly as he had forsaken his. She would never be able to truly carry on with her life as long as he was there. She would forever feel obligated to him, he supposed, obligated because of what she felt for him. Was that all love and emotion were, then, mere obligation? If so, then perhaps it would be better if all the lost remnants of war never felt it.

He continued to steal their redemption from them, a psychological vampire with all the inner desperation of a child. They were better off without him, but he could not say the same for himself. He was powerless to do anything without their respective presences in his life.

_You can't stand to be without someone or something to fight for, can you, Marquise?_

Odin's voice haunting him now as Treize's once did. Both of them, it seemed, were able to read into him perfectly. Zechs paused before the entrance of an alleyway, withdrew his hands from his pockets. They were gloved, just as they almost always were.

_Are your hands scarred, Marquise?_

_Excuse me?_

_Were your hands ever scarred in battle?_

_Why do you ask?_

_Because I haven't yet learned whether you always keep them covered in order to conceal some rather noticeable scar or if it is for another reason. _

_What would that other reason be?_

_While we kept you when you were in a coma, I never noticed any scars. Why do you keep them covered?_

_He turned and looked at Odin, unsure of how to answer. In truth he had never considered this. _

_Is it possible, Marquise, that subconsciously you are trying to hide your eyes from seeing all the metaphorical blood that you think your hands are bathed in?_

Of course it was possible. It was even probable. And most likely, it was even correct.

He peeled one white glove from his hands, then tentatively removed the other. The revealed flesh was smooth and pale, unmarred. A visible lie.

He put the gloves back on. It was almost a subconscious action.

As he moved to step back out into the crowd, a hand clamped on his shoulder from behind, pulling him into the darkness of the alleyway. Too late, drugged by his self-indulgent reveries of guilt, he realized what was happening, but before he could move his assailant succeeded in pulling him to the ground. The breath was knocked out of him as his back met the hard-packed earth, and, seeing his weakness, his assailant fell atop him, pinning him to the ground.

"Marquise," his assailant whispered hoarsely, and gave a soft laugh. His face, a ghastly sight in the darkness, was half-illuminated by the lights of the populated quarter, and after a moment of studying it, as if the out-of-place British voice were not enough, Zechs recognized the man as the one he had come within an inch of killing in Vólos, the computer analyst who worked devotedly for the counteroffensive while serving under Treize Kushrenada.

His surprise was displayed in a blink.

Rhyn laughed again. "With that hair of yours, love, I thought it would be you. Either you or a beautiful woman, and I'm a bit disappointed now." He looked Zechs over and smiled. "But you're quite pretty yourself, I'll admit. What do you say, love? Give us a kiss!" He lunged forward and planted his lips firmly on Zechs's cheek. His eyes widened and he gave another smile (_what had happened to him?_) and reached down below Zechs's waist. "Is that a gun in your coat pocket, love, or are you just very happy to see me?" He quickly plucked the gun from Zechs's pocket and feigned an expression of disappointment. Then, shrugging, he smiled again and said, "Takes more than a quick nudge to get you excited, does it? Maybe we can remedy that later."

"Get off me," Zechs grunted, pushing the younger man away. The light fell full on his face and again Zechs blinked, appalled by what had been done to him.

Rhyn's sweetly handsome face was almost completely unrecognizable, beaten and cut by God-only-knew whom and with what to such an extent that even Zechs found it horrifying. There was a long gash in his forehead, crimson and swollen, bruised and appearing too fresh to have been properly treated. Both of his eyes were ringed in black, one shot with blood and the other nearly swollen shut, and his lips were split and parched. The sides of his face were mottled with bruises, and atop it all, his hair clung to his scalp in tangled, blood-matted clumps.

Rhyn noticed Zechs's examination of him, and this seemed to somber him. "My face took the worst of it," he mumbled, briefly lowering his eyes. "Herr chief inquisitor ensured of that." He looked back up at Zechs and smiled. "I think he was afraid that with my astounding Liverpudlian looks someone else would take a fancy to me and not leave him any. I always blocked my throat, though," he ended strangely, laughing again but less merrily this time, as though the thought of all he had endured at the hands of the officers in Germany were enough to disturb even him. Finally he got to his feet and said, "Well, love, are you going to give me some assistance or should I start walking?" He eyed Zechs almost warily for a moment. "You still don't trust me, do you, Marquise? I could say the same in regard to yourself, love, but Odin seems to trust you well enough, and so therefore I do as well. We can't very well get anything done if we all think like this toward each other, now, can we? Didn't think so. Now come on, love, get up and get me the hell out of here. I've gotten enough strange looks just trying to get here, and I would appreciate not receiving any more."

Zechs watched him a moment longer, then wordlessly rose from the ground and took his gun out of Rhyn's careless hand. As they walked toward the opposite end of the alleyway, where it opened into an empty residential street, Rhyn remarked, "That was fun and all, but I think I like it with you on top better."

**II**

"You didn't walk here from the palace, did you? Cold as it is."

Zechs did not even regard him with a glance. "No."

"Good. I don't think I can keep walking much longer."

Zechs put an arm across the younger man's back to steady him. They had gone two miles from the lights and crowds of the merchant district, and within the past few minutes Rhyn had begun to stumble, faltering on his battered legs and almost collapsing more than once. His sense of humor had not seemed to wane, however, and as Zechs held him up while pulling him along — much like Odin had been forced to do for him two nights ago — he waited to hear another coarse sexual innuendo.

Rhyn supplied it gladly, though his voice was becoming as weak as his legs. "Imagine what people would think if they were to see us like this, love. Here we are, two men walking alone together on a beautiful winter's night such as this, and you don't even have the decency to kiss me. What would they say . . ." He stumbled again and Zechs caught him, not having the chance to feel awkward at the latest remark. He did wonder, however, if Treize had been made aware of Rhyn's strange sense of humor, then looking again at the boy's face and knowing that Treize had been in Germany at the time that he was taken into custody, he assumed that Treize had been given the opportunity to learn of it personally. "How soon can we be in Vólos?" Rhyn asked, learning on Zechs now. He really wasn't going to be able to walk much longer.

Zechs tightened his grip on him to prevent him from falling. "We're not going to Vólos."

Rhyn pushed onward, breathing almost laboriously as though he were beginning to contract a cold again. After a moment he said, "Odin told me he would have to restrict contact with you to within the boundaries of the kingdom soon. When did this happen?"

"After the incident in Austria."

Rhyn gave a soft laugh. "Sounds about right. You received a warning after it and I received another beating. It would have been worse if they could have proven I had helped to orchestrate it." He thought for a moment, then added, "I don't think it was any us who did it. It wouldn't have mattered how they worked to hide it, if it had been anyone within the counteroffensive either Odin or Yuan-Chen would have known. They wouldn't have allowed it."

Zechs blinked at the mention of Yuan-Chen's name. "Xing?" he asked, referring to the surname of the one Odin had mentioned.

Rhyn raised an eyebrow. "Yuan-Chen, you mean? Has he come to Vólos already?"

"No."

"He will soon then, after what they did in Austria. Treize will have to act soon now, and we have to be ready to act too. Has Odin mentioned the Sagittarius's development?"

"I thought it was complete."

"It is, but we're awaiting one last detail. It would have been impossible if I had been found out sooner."

Zechs gave him in inquisitive expression.

"I made a copy of the program of the Gemini's cockpit system in Germany and had it sent to Odin the night before I was arrested. Gave it to one of the officers who works for Odin, too. He left the base with it that night. Did he make it to Vólos?"

"I don't know."

"Ah, yes, your business when it comes to the mobile suits is the Gundam, isn't it? The Epyon. Were you pleased with its reconstruction?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Because I was one of those who headed it."

Zechs looked at him.

Rhyn smiled. "I'm a constant source of amazement, aren't I, Marquise? If you promise not to pull a gun on me again, I'll give you some real amazement once this business is done and over with." He quickly delivered a kiss to the side of Zechs's face. Zechs blinked but did not release him, knowing that if he did the perverse Brit would collapse.

"Where are we going, then," Rhyn asked, "if not to Vólos?"

"The only place I can take you is the palace. You can contact Odin there."

"Yuan-Chen too," he said sleepily, sounding very much like a child, and he followed this with a yawn. "I should notify him too. He's probably already written me off for dead." He fell silent, walked on, guided by Zechs. "Yuan-Chen was my tutor in Liverpool when I was a boy," he said after several minutes had passed. "Tried to rob him, I did. Wasn't successful, though. He all but tore my hand from my wrist, and I never even saw him move. My parents were both killed by the Alliance bigots of the Cosmos Arm. My father died in an air raid, and Mum was arrested by the Arm about a month later. I never saw her again. I don't even know what happened to her. She's dead, I know that, but I don't when or how or what she had to go through before. Have you ever heard the name Sakura Hanasaki, Marquise?"

Zechs started to reply 'no,' stopped. He remembered the picture he had found in Vólos, the one that had for one brief moment elicited an emotion from Odin; the face of the Japanese woman with hair like the wings of a raven, with eyes that seemed to hold knowledge of every aspect of the universe.

"You probably haven't," Rhyn continued without receiving a response. His voice was heavily slurred now, and his thick Liverpudlian accent all but made his words unintelligible. "She died in AC 185. You might find her a bit interesting, though. She was the King Peacecraft of the other side of the globe. Some hailed her as the next Heero Yuy. She began a series of protests in Japan in opposition of the Alliance's hold over the colonies and the Earth, specifically the Cosmos Arm. Had some real opposition to the Arm, she did. People came from all over the world and even the colonies to join her. She was the mother of Takeru Hanasaki, who disappeared immediately following her death and later emerged as" — his voice fell to unintelligible mumbling — "the pilot. You're familiar with that name, I'm sure. My parents were some of those who went to her. Took me with them, they did. It was beautiful over there, Marquise, so…so very beautiful. I know now, knew then actually, why he felt called to go there. Odin, I mean. God only knows how long Yuan-Chen had been there. And she was so powerful. You could see that in her at first glance. I was only a child and I saw it. Strength of the mountain was within her, they said. It's no wonder that he loved her so, of course don't let Odin know I told you that he did. He doesn't talk about it, but by the way the others did — the others at the temple, I mean, when I went there for a year or so once — I think she must have loved him as he loved her. But anyway, my parents fled with me right after she died. We went back to Liverpool, but the Arm was not satisfied with her death alone, and that same year they came after all who were on record as having had contact with her. Air raid killed my father. They arrested mum, and I hid in the alley behind our house until they were gone. I was too young to do anything to stop them.

"Yuan-Chen and I had met briefly in Japan. He was a friend of the woman, Sakura. God only knows how he made it out of there alive. He came to England a few years later, after I had learned the basic rules of survival for any orphan of the Alliance. Traveling the world, he was. Our paths crossed just on the south of Liverpool. I saw him only from behind at first, an old man with long gray pulled and tied into a thin tail, walking alone on such streets that were widely known to be dangerous. I tried to take from him whatever he might have and in less than a full instant he had my arm, and my hand was near torn off my wrist before his eyes had ever shifted toward me. Didn't even see him move. 'Rhyn Tolkien,' he says to me, and he smiles as though he hadn't just caught me trying to rob him of his eyes if I had to. I was eleven years old then, and I hadn't yet killed a man, but I was willing if need arose. 'Of all the people in the world and space, to find you here is something I would never in all my many years have imagined.' Of course that wasn't how he said it, but it's close enough, I suppose. Said he didn't believe in coincidence. I recognized him immediately despite how long it had been since last I had seen him. He–" Rhyn stumbled and almost fell again. Zechs put his arm fully about the younger man's shoulders, and Rhyn put his own arm about Zechs's waist, not as a humorous gesture but rather to stabilize himself.

After they had progressed a few more yards, Rhyn, now silent and yawning, the car Zechs had driven from the palace became visible. Rhyn let out a heavy sigh of relief and said, "Marquise, if you always insist on parking this far away, I pity your Miss Noin when she has the baby. I don't imagine a pregnant woman going into labor would enjoy walking so far to a hospital."

Blink.

"We heard that one all the way up there in Germany. It was reported that rather than come to Thessaloníki as you were told to you left Earth in quite a rush without sending a message of explanation. A group of officers was sent after you, and they managed to enamor the men at the palace's private space harbor in conversation about the returned Prince enough that one of them, thinking nothing of it, of course, let it slip that the Prince had just recently left for the Mars colony. Apparently he mentioned something about the hospital up there, for rather than follow you, love, which, by the way, I would do all the way to the Neptune, if Mars weren't closer and Uranus a bit too provocative for my taste, they returned to the base and managed to hack into that particular hospital's files, where they learned that one Miss Lucrezia Noin had been brought in and was discovered to be pregnant. I'd heard you mention her name before in Vólos right after that pleasant little romp on the floor in front of Odin, so when I overheard the guards in Germany talking about it, I put two and three together and made four, and you must have done something right because according to this conversation amongst fools that I heard, this Miss Noin has always taken a fancy to you and you're the only one that–"

"I understand your point," Zechs interjected.

They reached the car. Zechs had to lower Rhyn into the passenger seat for his strength was nearly depleted by then. "I suppose I'm to stay the rest of the night there," Rhyn said once Zechs had started the car.

"You may stay as long as necessary."

"You don't like me, do you, Marquise? I know you don't trust me, but you can distrust someone and still like them all the same, but you don't do either, do you? You haven't liked me since the episode with the tissue. Fairly rude of you, I might say. They say you need a sense of humor to make it in this life and I believe that, and if it's true then by all rights you should be dead right now."

Zechs grunted. "By all rights I should have been dead at the age of six."

Rhyn feigned a gasp. "My, is that some repressed emotion there, Marquise? You should do that more often. But tell me, love, why don't you like me? Is it because you still think I'm an idiot? You've no reason to think that now, if you were really that pleased with the Epyon. I don't understand you people, I really don't." After another moment he added, "What are the chances I could get something to eat at the palace? Doesn't matter what, really. I haven't eaten in three days. Haven't slept for longer than that. It's a wonder I didn't crash their bloody plane."

Zechs raised an eyebrow.

"You haven't even asked me how I escaped the clutches of Herr Chief Inquisitor yet. What so funny about it is I don't even know myself. It was late just the other night and I heard from my quaint little cell a noise like the beginnings of a fight. Ended rather quickly, though. Next thing I knew my door is being unlocked and when it opens there stands a man like no on else I'd ever seen at the base. Dressed all in black, he is, and a bit taller than yourself, love, and his head was covered completely, including most of his face. 'Odin doesn't know I've done this,' he said, and he told me to come out of the cell. I did as best I could — if you think I'm in bad shape now you should've seen me then — and I saw that the guard had been knocked out. The man led me through the prisoners' ward of the base and out through a passageway I'd never been aware of, and he takes me down to where the hangars are. He said he could not go on with me, but I was to take one of the planes to get as far from Germany as I could 'Find someone who can tend to your wounds,' he said, because the organization would be looking for me and no hospital would be out of its reach. I did as he told me. I wanted to get to Vólos, but the plane had only enough fuel for the mountains around the kingdom. That was all right, though. It'll take them longer to find it now. I decided to try to make it to Newport, to the palace, but call it a miracle or whatever you will, when I reached this area, I caught sight of the lovely Prince I was looking for. I don't believe in coincidences, love. If you regret me finding you, you'll have to take it up with the powers that be. I had to follow you a while, though. Didn't want to get your attention in public, not looking like this. Would've drawn too much attention, it would." His rambling voice trailed off, slurred with sleep. The last words Zechs was able to derive from his speech were 'the voice sounded like his,' and then at last Rhyn gave in to the much-needed slumber that had been trying to take him for so long now.

Zechs did not display his relief.

After he had driven in silence for a while, he became aware that Rhyn was mumbling to himself. He looked at the younger man and saw that he was indeed still sleeping. His voice became a slight degree louder as he went on, and Zechs realized that he was not talking in his sleep, but rather was singing. His voice was soft still but intelligible, and Zechs recognized the words immediately.

"…_benedicta tu in mulieribus,_

_Et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus…"_

His hands froze on the steering wheel. It was perhaps best that this happened, for they were suddenly trembling.

_Glimmer of silver in the candlelight. Click-click of the beads._

_Luca's voice, soft, whispering. Her hand touching his, pressing the beads into it. _

_My prince, please._

_Rhyn's voice of only a few minutes ago: I don't believe in coincidence, love._

Rhyn continued singing quietly to himself as he slept, peacefully unaware that beside him Zechs looked as if he had glimpsed a ghost. His voice was undeniably rather pleasant despite his often crude speech, and had Zechs not been so shaken by the words which he sang and the memory of the one thing request had not been enough to convince him to impart to Odin, he would have found it utterly beautiful. He sounded quite like a young boy as he sang at this quiet volume, though his pitch and timbre were that of a man, and if the era had allowed it and he not have been a soldier, he could easily have been a prominent member of a professional choir.

"_Sancta Maria, Mater Dei…"_

"Ora por nobis nunc et in hora mortis nostrae," Zechs finished in a monotonous whisper, while the other man sang it. It had been years since he had heard so much as a line of it, but the night of the glimmer of silver and the clicking beads, the night when in Florence he had for the first time seen the girl as the fallen Baroness Lucrezia rather than Cadet Noin, had burned it forever into his memory.

Rhyn quietly sang the prayer to himself again, then moved on to another. The words were distinctly Latin, but they struck no chord in Zechs's mind.

He fell silent when they were only a few minutes from the entrance to the palace. He slept on until they were at the gates, and awoke when the car stopped.

He surveyed his new surroundings in something like an awed silence, then he noticed Zechs looking at him.

"What's wrong, love? You're looking at me rather strangely and I wouldn't exactly call those bedroom eyes you're putting on, so what is it? Did I talk in my sleep?" Despite his comment, he sounded almost embarrassed.

"You were singing," Zechs said pointedly.

"Oh." Rhyn looked away sheepishly. "Sorry if I disturbed you."

"No. You sounded rather nice."

"Did I? Well, that's the Liverpudlian songbird in me. My mum always sang to me when I was a boy. She'd been a singer when she was young, an opera singer, I mean, and she taught me a few things. I was trained in opera professionally for a few years. Made a good living off it, I did." He sat up higher in the seat as Zechs watched him in repressed shock that this strange, coarse young man had once been a professional opera singer. "So love, are we going to have a go at it in the backseat or were you going to express your love for me properly in one of the luxurious beds in your not-so-humble palace?"

Zechs grunted and got out of the car. Rhyn started to get out and could not, and it was soon clear that Zechs would have to assist him.

"Aren't you going to carry me across the threshold, love?" he asked when Zechs stopped to enter the code that would open the gate.

He said nothing and pulled the wounded Liverpudlian through the gateway with him.

A light flickered on in the palace near the reception hall. Either Lucrezia or Pagan, he supposed, most likely the latter. He doubted that Relena had yet come out of her locked chambers.

Pagan opened the door when they were still a few yards away from it. Lucrezia appeared behind him, her face looking rested now and calm despite the scene she looked upon.

She brushed past Pagan and ran down the stone walkway, oblivious, it seemed, to the hard chill that hung in the air around the palace. _A testament to growing coldness of its Queen._

"Give him to me," she said when she reached them, and before Zechs could protest she took Rhyn from him. He was barely any heavier than she and she lifted him easily. The Brit laughed and threw his arms about her neck.

"Now this is the proper way to do it," he said, loudly enough to wake the dead as well as every peacefully sleeping citizen of the kingdom, Zechs thought. "Are you sure you don't want me to carry you over the threshold, love? You being pregnant and all, this can't be good for you. That is, I'm assuming you're Miss Noin since your resemblance to her is quite striking and likewise I'm assuming that Marquise over there is indeed the proud papa Peacecraft to be, though I'm rather curious about that one as our cowering Crown Prince seems a bit too full of himself to fill anyone else if you get what I'm–"

"You're Rhyn, aren't you?"

The Brit laughed and planted a firm kiss on her cheek. "Has the lovely Marquise told you about me?"

"Something like that," she replied, exchanging an amused glance with Zechs.

"Did he tell you that he almost committed murder upon my once-desirable body because I reached for a tissue?"

"I believe he mentioned something about it." She turned to carry his ecstatic form through the doorway.

"Are there girls here?" he asked as Lucrezia set him back on his feet once inside the alcove before the servants' quarters. "I know there's a Queen and all that, but is there anyone not quite so in the public eye as to enable them to engage in a scandalous affair or two?"

Pagan, smiling, shook his head as though at the antics of a young child.

"Your presence here is scandalous enough as it is," Zechs said quietly, though to what avail he didn't know, for Rhyn's loud voice had already carried all throughout the corridor, perhaps awakening the entire staff.

Rhyn feigned a disappointed expression and looked pitifully at Lucrezia. "He really doesn't like me all that much, love. He's had it in for me ever since the little tissue incident."

They guided Rhyn through the servants' halls, out into the main parlor of the palace without incident. Lucrezia glanced at Zechs often, and when at last Rhyn's battered head was turned in the opposite direction, he mouthed silently that he would explain later.

Rhyn was allowed to stop and rest in the parlor for a few minutes, then without hesitation or consideration Lucrezia turned him down another corridor.

"I've learned over the years not to question events surrounding you," Pagan said before Zechs followed after them, "but I must admit, Sir, that I am quite curious about this one."

He found them in one of the palace's largest bathrooms. Rhyn, it seemed, whose voice Zechs could hear chattering from the parlor, had been instructed to sit on the marble edge of en elegant bathtub, while Lucrezia saw to cleaning his wounds.

He paused momentarily to reflect on how wonderful she would have been in the medical field, had she only chosen that instead of the life and career of a soldier when circumstances, almost simultaneously with those of his own life, had forced her into an active role in warfare.

He stepped into the bathroom and stood by the doorway. Rhyn saved him the trouble of explaining their reunion in the alleyway and the events leading to it by informing Lucrezia of them as she washed his face, paying special attention to his numerous cuts. Lucrezia nodded often and smiled whenever Rhyn made another colorful statement about either her or Zechs, not offended as he had briefly feared she might be, and after she had bandaged his open wounds and examined his bruised chest and back as well as his face, he was given a handheld mirror.

He stared into it for a long while before speaking, unsmiling, his eyes slightly narrowed as he studied his reflection. In those moments Zechs thought that this was the only thing that could sober him as earlier only sleep had.

Finally, he looked up at them and said, "I kind of like it. Gives me a dangerous edge, don't you think?"

A rustling from beyond the doorway halted any relieved reply. They all turned, Zechs expecting to see Pagan or perhaps another servant. He could barely stifle the surprised expression that threatened to come over his face when he saw who it was, and on Lucrezia's face he saw a similar expression.

It was Rhyn who spoke first.

"Your Majesty," he said with a reverence that was not at all false. "I would bow or curtsy or something of the like, but Miss Noin told me not to move and she has not yet told me any differently."

Relena gave a curt smile. She was dressed in the same white raiment that had adorned her divine figure that morning, but her hair had been let down and her eyes were hard and set, and stained red as though from an earlier hour spent crying.

She took another single step into the room, glancing once to Zechs. "I heard something outside," she stated dully as her explanation for finding them. "What is this, Milliardo?"

"This," Rhyn said dramatically, jumping up and bending in an exaggerated bow that must have hurt him, "is one Sir Rhyn Tolkien, formerly of Liverpool as you can most likely tell from my sensuous voice, and guest of the Prince. I apologize for my appearance at the moment — normally I'm quite a wondrous looking creature — but I've recently been imprisoned in Germany, and you know how a few hundred years ago they were the ones who put up places like Auschwitz and whatnot so that should be explanatory in itself."

Relena stood silent, unsmiling, rigid as a monarch of old. After some time she blinked as though returning from some deep reverie and, stepping forward again she asked, "You're an acquaintance of my brother?"

"Yes, Your Majesty, though the lovely Prince might say differently. You have my deepest not-quite-so-humble apologies for my intrusion."

At last Relena smiled. "If you are an acquaintance of my brother you are welcome here, and you may call me Relena."

Rhyn looked at Zechs. "Seems we're already on a first name basis then. Marquise and I aren't even that far yet." He winked and turned back to Relena. "So I have the Queen's permission to stay here, then? That and the Prince's command."

Relena nodded. "Pagan has returned to his chambers. I'll find a room for you."

With that she pivoted and departed. Zechs's eyes followed her, and he caught a brief peripheral glimpse of Lucrezia's questioning expression.

"Is she going to be all right?" Rhyn asked after a moment, perhaps sensing that something was wrong with the Queen, perhaps knowing on some more somber level that this was not the young woman with whom the people of Earth and space had fallen in love years ago.

Lucrezia nodded and gave the younger man a cordial smile. "She has a lot placed upon her shoulders right now, but yes, in time she will be."

Rhyn considered this for a moment in a rare serious manner, then shattered his own solemnity by saying, "Good, because I'd hate see someone with a pole up his ass like our Marquise here have to take her place."

Lucrezia stifled a laugh. She needed something to laugh about, Zechs supposed, and if she were provided with something at his expense, he was grateful for it.

Lucrezia assisted Rhyn in putting his shirt back on, promising to find a change of clothes for him by morning. No sooner had she dressed him and in return received a quick kiss, when Relena again appeared silently in the doorway.

"I have your rooms ready for your use now," she said, then looking at Zechs she added, "I want to speak to you about this in the morning, Milliardo."

He nodded.

"I need to contact Odin first," Rhyn informed her, as though she knew who Odin was. "And Yuan-Chen too. He must be quite worried about me, even though I've never really seen him worried about anything before, what with my supposed death and all. And Marguerite, too."

Lucrezia flashed him the expression of a physician who has just been informed that a patient is about to walk out of a hospital an hour after undergoing heart surgery. "You shouldn't even be thinking of that now."

"But–"

"We'll take care of it. All you need to worry about right now is getting some rest."

Surprisingly, he gave no further protest.

He stood shakily and went toward the melancholy queen. Relena gave a curt farewell to Zechs and Lucrezia and, without a further word, escorted him into the hall.

They were left looking at each other wearily, unable to speak for several slow minutes. Finally Lucrezia took his hand and whispered softly, "Let's go to bed."

**III**

Rhyn remained almost completely silent as he followed her through the dark corridors, and when he did speak, it was none of his former dramatic rambling. She didn't ask how he knew her brother or why he had been brought here; she didn't care anymore. Besides, she feared she already knew.

Of course, Milliardo was unaware of this.

"Here," she said quietly, stopping him in front of his rooms on the third floor. "This is it."

"You're quite a morose dear, aren't you, Majesty-love?" he asked, but in surprisingly solemn tone.

"What do you mean?"

"Are you really that unaware of it? The whole world outside these walls knows that something is wrong with the lovely Queen of Sanq. If you wanted to become so depressed, love, you shouldn't have become such a public figure."

She met his eyes and he smiled.

"Your brother is quite concerned about you."

"Has he told you this?"

"He doesn't have to. Anyone who knows him at all can tell it. He sacrificed most of his life for you, you know. You can isolate yourself from the rest of the world, Your Majesty, but don't isolate yourself from him."

Her eyes fell away from his. She was beginning to regret personally escorting this stranger who seemed able to read into her too well to his room.

He caught her wrist. "Relena."

"Yes?"

"I won't tell him about your involvement in these affairs. That's your place. But you must tell him."

"I don't understand." Oh, but didn't she understand? Didn't she?

"Do I have to spell it out and throw it all up into your face before you'll admit to it? Tell me, love, why do you think I was imprisoned in Germany? What have I done?"

She tried to pull away from him. "I don't kn–"

"Just tell me what his name is. Who was my imprisonment under?"

"Please don't–"

"Listen to me, Your Majesty! Your kingdom is at stake here, not mine. I have nowhere to go. I do this for your sake and for the sake of your kingdom, not my own. You know what's going on here. You've known almost ever since it began, you suspected it and sometime after your resignation as Vice Foreign Minister you found out it's true. When did he come to you?"

"Who?"

His eyes flashed. "Treize Kushrenada! When did he come to you? I know that he did. What did he do to make you succumb to him? What did he do to make you hide what he's done?"

"You've no right to–"

"You've no right to allow your people to die! Do you think he'll be satisfied with Sanq? Do you really think he will be? The Sanq Kingdom will only be the first to fall and with it will fall the colonies! You have enough power to try to stop all of this. Why are you helping him?"

Something warm rolled down her face. "Don't tell me any of these things."

His voice softened. His hand left her wrist and brushed against her face in a concerned gesture. "The counteroffensive is designing a new type of system for the mobile suits, at the base in Spain. The system is unlike any other. Rather than affect the pilot, it affects the enemy suit."

"You shouldn't tell me this," she said. Her voice quivered like a torn flower in a high eastern wind. "You shouldn't…you shouldn't trust me with this."

Rhyn smiled warmly. "His name, the leader of the counteroffensive, is Odin Lowe. Treize knows this but most of the others don't. I trust you with this. Your brother is, as you suspect, part of the counteroffensive, one of its highest members. You must withdraw your support of Treize."

"I'm not supporting him," she protested, too loudly, too desperately. "I've never supported him."

"But you allowed him to manipulate you into acquiescing while he gains an army."

"I didn't know–"

"Of course you didn't know," he said, his voice softening even more. "Do you really take Treize for such an idiot? Do you take your brother as one for that matter? Treize needed you for whatever ungodly reason and Marquise-love is making a futile attempt to protect you. Do you really not understand this, Your Majesty?"

She was weeping now, she realized unable to stop the tears. A loud sob escaped her lips. "Is this why you've come here?" she asked finally.

He shook his head and smiled again. Despite the numerous injuries that had been inflicted upon his face, his smile provided her with a glimpse of the boyish innocence his face had once possessed. "No," he said, "I came here for free lodgings and perhaps even a nice nap preceded and/or followed by a nice lay. Now, you're not quite as pretty as your brother but you're nice-looking enough. Take me to bed!"

This halted her tears as nothing else had. She merely stared at him for a moment, shocked, then at last his crude statement elicited a quiet laugh from her. She opened the door and waved him through, and after a brief 'goodnight,' she retreated to her own suite, to compose yet another, perhaps futile letter.

She tried to put him and all that he had said out of her mind completely. At the coming of sleep, she succeeded.

**Author's Notes:** Rhyn's back! I really have been quite surprised by how much people seem to like him. I'm sure some of you have your suspicions about how he escaped prison. I decided to use him in this chapter to introduce the upcoming vignettes involving Odin Lowe and Heero and their connection. Sakura is another original character of whom I'm rather fond, although her very existence, as Rhyn hinted in this chapter, does screw up quite a few lives. She started out as something of a deus ex machina, in that I had intended to simply use her for my convenience in creating a back story, but that back story metamorphosed into what you will find in the next few chapters. I couldn't resist having him sing in his sleep; I've seen a few people do it, and thought it would be cute in a more classical capacity. (As a side note, Rhyn's comment about Germany is not meant to be offensive; I myself from am from a German family.)

The situation with Relena comes to a head in the next chapter.


	15. Chapter Fourteen

_Chapter Fourteen_

**I **

A week passed, another. Rhyn remained at the palace at the advisory of Odin Lowe, who had merely raised an eyebrow at the news that the Brit had not only survived imprisonment in Germany but had escaped, which Zechs took as a great emotional reaction. His exuberance had not decreased in the slightest since coming to the palace; he had begun to flirt not only with Zechs and Lucrezia but the servants as well; Lanka was almost always seen blushing because of his scandalous remarks and recently he had begun to badger Pagan.

Between the events preceding the battle that grew more truly inevitable with each passing day and dealing with the rantings of the self-proclaimed 'Brit charmer,' Zechs had not a moment to himself.

The one person Rhyn in whom seemed to take no interest was Relena. He spoke not a word to her whenever they saw each other to Zechs's knowledge save for a formal 'Good morning, Your Highness' at breakfast and a 'Good evening, Your Highness' at dinner. The expressions exchanged between them at these too-quiet too-solemn meals were hard and often bitter, and for this neither Zechs nor Lucrezia could elicit an explanation.

Within another week the effects of Lucrezia's pregnancy were becoming more blatant: though her abdomen remained unstretched and flat, she tired easily, and her mornings were plagued by sickness. Pagan was the only person other than Zechs who knew of this, but he doubted that the fact of the pregnancy of the Prince's mistress would remain concealed for much longer.

The events within the palace were the least of their concerns.

The investigation into the Austrian incident continued to yield no results until the Supreme Council received reports of a new model mobile suit being sighted in Germany. The reports were publicly released both on Earth and in space, and the governments of each nation went both respectively and collaboratively into defense planning. The Sanq Kingdom was no exception to this.

The situation escalated only days later when the leaders of the Council received a handwritten letter from the leader of the force responsible for the production of these new suits, promising to "rid first the Earth and then colonies of every great warmonger whose crimes in the past have gone overlooked and forgiven, the blemishing pustules of humanity." The letter named the Supreme Earthsphere Council of Luxembourg as a tyrannical force in the making and guaranteed its elimination; it went on the threaten the Sanq Kingdom, accusing the country of acting as a "hypocritical martyr, waiting to attain a final glory through self-sacrifice in another battle." The governments of each nation were given this information, and within the following days it was released to the people.

The identity of the letter's author had yet to be discovered. It seemed now that to defend their own cause, the members of the counteroffensive would have to in turn protect Treize Kushrenada.

The messages that came to Zechs from Treize had all but ceased completely, and the few that did were even less informative than usual. Odin had, for the past weeks, seemed troubled by something that Zechs could not discern, and once after Rhyn had tried several times in one evening to contact him and received no response, the insistent Brit had smiled bemusedly and said, "He's probably off somewhere brooding again, he is. Odin could make a career out of brooding."

Indeed, all of them, even Rhyn, seemed lost within their own respective thoughts lately. Whether this was an omen of good or ill he did not know, and sometimes he believed that he had ceased to care.

However, he doubted any of them would have time to engage in such trivialities much longer. The first stage of the Earth's next war would most likely begin within the month.

**II**

Zechs approached the entrance of the estate of Thessaloníki without notice and without escort, vaguely pondering his own motive for coming here. Undoubtedly there was a security system providing a unit of guards with an image of him and perhaps there was even one watching him more personally with a gun trained on his vulnerable head, but this did little to deter him.

He had not told Lucrezia where he was going before he had left the palace, nor had he told the insatiable Rhyn when he had asked, eagerly as a puppy, if he could go, too. Relena had disappeared without a word from the palace hours earlier. He had not even notified Treize of his departure for the central base, and without such notification he could well be looked upon as an intruder. He failed to realize that this, like so many other things, no longer mattered to him.

Despite all this, the door to the right of the great main entrance gave him entry and he found not a single guard waiting inside. Still he saw no one as he continued into the elegant base, as though every guard had abandoned his post and every soldier had fled, perhaps in fear of battle not yet begun. All computers were dead and dark; all lights were subtle and dimmed. He found the silence as unnerving as a cemetery at midnight.

He proceeded on through the base, through the cold, empty corridors that reeked of wealth, of elegance, of, if war could indeed possess such a thing, the elegance of war, through halls of royal grandeur, until he reached the great staircase with the red carpet that even now did not fail to remind him of blood trickling down a woman's throat.

He ascended this quickly and proceeded without pause to Treize's grand office.

The room was dark and empty, cold as though it had not been used for several hours. For one moment Zechs was about to leave to search the rest of the estate, then he caught a glimpse of something in his peripheral vision, some quick, graceful movement. It was only then that he realized that the crystalline door to the balcony was slightly ajar.

He walked quietly, passively, to the door. It made not a sound as he pushed it open; in fact there was no sound at all for that one moment, although he was suddenly aware that faintly from out on the balcony he could hear two voices and when the speakers came into the moonlit view he could hear nothing but the furious pounding of his own heart and his own blood rushing within him, only a pregnant silence—

Treize Kushrenada backed away from his companion, whose lips he had momentarily been tasting when Zechs had stepped onto the balcony, and raised an amused eyebrow.

"Milliardo," he said conversationally, as though Zechs had not seen the woman at his side, "why didn't you tell me you were coming?"

He barely heard Treize's voice. An image — one that had inexplicably tormented him for weeks — rose in his mind, one of entering Relena's chambers one evening and finding her gone but something else there, a brief glimpse of a letter lying on her desk, that familiar handwriting—

Relena stood at Treize's side, trembling and suddenly white as a specter. Fresh tears cascaded down her pale face, falling unabated down her throat. Her lips were parted in a silent gasp; her hands were pressed to her neck as though in defense.

"Oh God, Milliardo," came a muffled cry from her quivering mouth, and she stepped back once, twice, as Treize's cynical smile broadened.

"Is something wrong, Zechs?" Treize asked, and when Zechs was unable to answer, Treize approached him.

"Milliardo, don't," Relena breathed, and fell to sobbing.

Zechs came out of his stupor enough to be aware that he was bestowing upon her an expression of outrage.

Treize slipped an arm over his shoulders and began to guide him back inside. "I believe we have something to discuss," he said, too casually, too amusedly. Zechs allowed himself to be led into the room, allowed the door to be shut behind them.

"Did you have some pressing matter bringing you here?" Treize asked.

Zechs looked at him incredulously.

Treize smiled. "Did you really not know about your sister? Come now, Zechs, did you really never even suspect it? This has been going on for quite some time now, though I must admit, the Queen and I have not had much contact in light of recent events."

"You–" he began, mumbling futilely, and stopped as the image played over in his mind; the letter, such elegant words, Relena's inexplicable knowledge of something happening in Thessaloníki, only moments ago, the two intertwined shadows as Treize stepped in to press his lips to hers.

"You didn't know at all, then," Treize continued. "Would you like to know how it began? I came to her shortly after her coronation as Queen. She didn't know about any of this" — he gestured at the room, the estate — "until quite recently, however. I do believe it may very well have changed her opinion of me." He gave a soft laugh.

Zechs tried to speak, could not. He fell back against the wall, helplessly, unable to move.

"Would you like to know more? Would you like to know the taste of her lips? How the lovely, virginal Queen of Sanq is in her royal bedroom? Would you like to know how it hurt her at first when I took her, how she begged me to go on?"

Their eyes met again and Zechs's paralysis fell away. With a great cry like that of some inhuman beast he lunged at Treize's smiling shadowed figure, barely aware that he was screaming, that behind them Relena was shouting at him to stop, unaware that Treize was overpowering him, pinning him to the floor—

So fast, all of it. So fast, so wrong…

"Don't think I don't know what you're doing," Treize growled as he held him fast to the marble floor. "I know you're with him, that you always have been. Do you really think me that foolish?"

Zechs tried to pull himself out from underneath Treize and found himself suddenly all too aware of what had just happened, what had just been said, but without strength.

Treize favored him with another angered smile and rose. The only sound that followed for a moment was his fleeting footsteps as he left the room.

Relena sobbing. Moaning as though in pain. Had he caused this pain, too? Of course he had. Didn't he always, in some way or another? Just the two of them now, she crying, his head swimming. Relena. Beautiful liar. Why always this pain between them?

Relena, face streaked read by tears, knelt beside him, placed her hand on the side of his face.

He pulled away from her.

"Milliardo, please," she sobbed desperately. "Please don't turn your back on me. Please don't, Milliardo."

She tried to embrace him. Without realizing what he was doing, he shoved her away and fled.

**III**

Tear-studded eyes. Sweat dripping down his face. Trembling hands fumbling for something, another pair of steady hands holding the glass to his lips. Something warm passing into his throat, warm and awakening, another voice —

"Calm down, Marquise."

Her face behind his eyes. _Beautiful, beloved, beautiful liar._ Grasping blindly for the hands that steadied him upon the chair on which he lay.

"She was with him," he mumbled, perhaps futilely as perhaps his voice failed him. "She was…there…with him."

Odin took a seat across from him. Zechs could not remember how he had gotten to the base in Vólos, whether he had found his way there himself or with Odin's assistance, or whether something else entirely had happened.

"Don't speak until you're calm enough to do it properly," Odin advised, watching him contemplatively, serenely.

Zechs's dazed eyes traveled from Odin to the desk beside him. He noticed with something like a dumb wonder that atop it lay another picture of the same woman whose photograph he had first seen in this room, the Japanese woman whom Rhyn had once, in a weary stupor, claimed that Odin loved.

She held a child in her arms in this picture, which was in full color but still appeared to have been cut from something, and her head was tilted slightly over that of the boy, who was old enough to seem vaguely familiar to Zechs but almost young enough still to be considered a baby. Her eyes were calm and deep, almond-shaped pools of an exotic black oil, and while her full lips were still curled slightly in that natural smile he had seen in the previous picture, her expression was one of quiet solemnity. Her hair, which had been down and loose before, was swept up into a tight glossy bun at the back of her head, leaving only a few strands down around her face.

The eyes of the boy, he noticed inexplicably, were not dark as those of most Asian children, but rather were a deep Prussian blue.

The picture sobered him as nothing else had been able to do.

Odin's eyes had followed his to the photograph, yet when they faced each other again there was no anger or shock in his face.

"In all the time Rhyn has been with you in Sanq," he said calmly, "have you yet learned who she is?"

"He said she was a great enemy of the Alliance."

Odin nodded. "The Cosmos Arm specifically considered her a threat."

"That was before my time."

"But Dekim Barton was not."

He merely grunted.

"Do you know who the child is?"

Again Zechs glanced at the picture, at the boy. "No," he said after a moment of consideration. "No, I do not."

"Then it is best that you don't."

He met Odin's eyes. "Rhyn says you were once in love with her."

Odin only smiled. "Rhyn says too much sometimes." Leaning forward in a quick change of the subject that Zechs would not realize until much later, he asked, "Now that you appear to be calmed, Prince, would you care to explain yourself?"

He was silent for a long while. Finally he shook his head. "The matter is irrelevant now." He remembered the strange glances between Rhyn and Relena, and wondered if Rhyn had somehow known all this time.

"It didn't seem so irrelevant earlier," Odin remarked.

"I have since reconsidered it."

Odin raised an eyebrow. "Have you? Then shall I make an arrangement for you to be taken back to Sanq?"

"I can't return tonight," he said, too quickly.

"I suppose this matter would be irrelevant as well."

Zechs dumbly nodded.

Odin smiled. "Irrelevant enough to keep you away from your royal home."

He said nothing.

"Then I shall have to ask you to do something for me."

Zechs waited, with an inquisitive expression upon his face.

"In light of recent events," Odin went on, "the movement of mobile suits from the production base in Spain to here has already begun. However, there are still a few matters that have yet to be addressed. This will require you traveling to Spain, Marquise. Will this mission be longer than you needed?"

He thought of how he had left Relena, of pushing her away, hearing her crying out after him. She would undoubtedly be back at the palace now.

"No," he said. "I would be grateful for it."

"Then I will send you." His eyes went, strangely, to the picture of the woman and the small boy she held. "I believe now that you, Prince, are the only one suited for what it is you have to do."

Zechs glanced at the photograph as Odin had.

"You will be meeting with my highest subordinate, by the way."

He gave a faint smile as he thought he began to recognize the blue-eyed child, and listened numbly as Odin explained his mission.

_I am so sorry, Relena._

**Author's Notes: **A very short chapter, but a very important one. I've received quite a bit of feedback regarding the situation with Relena and Treize and their respective actions therein; some of it has been good, some dissenting, and some rather scathing. I will defend it now in the same way I did when the scene was first written, long before it was posted on this website: there is a reason for Treize's uncharacteristic actions. I am aware that Treize is far too much of a gentleman to behave and speak so vulgarly, but I will assure you that he acts as he does for a certain reason, that will be explained in detail later in this story. If, however, anyone is curious as to how I first formulated this idea, it was after seeing the GW episode in which Treize relieves Relena of her duties as Queen of the Earthsphere. I can't remember the name or number of the episode, but the scene in which she first becomes aware that Treize is behind her in the room somehow inexplicably inspired the relationship between them in Ballad.


	16. Chapter Fifteen

_Chapter Fifteen_

**I**

Zechs shrugged into his overcoat and handed a wad of bills to the driver, not caring how much money he gave the man but knowing the sum of the profit would buy more than just a few nights on the town. It seemed that these days the only untraceable mode of transportation was a taxi with a heavily-tipped driver.

He was sure he had not been followed, but nonetheless after he got out of the cab he looked over his shoulder, half-expecting to see some telltale trace of an amateur pursuer despite all the precautions he had taken. There were none.

The cab sped eagerly away, leaving Zechs standing alone by the docks, visible not only to anyone Treize might have sent after him but also to the people inside the building. He did not particularly care about this. If anyone saw him and, after deciding he was more foe than friend, wanted to gun him down, let them do it. He welcomed death over what would be coming if this mission were not successful.

He walked along the docks toward the building's side entrance. He lifted his eyes to the sky and without any intention of doing it he halted, his eyes wide and wondering as those of a child.

The sky was high tonight, and clear save for a few black wisps of clouds. The moon was behind one of these and the clouds muted its light to a dull shimmer. With the moonlight gone he could see the stars — _so many stars so many it made his head swim to look at them millions upon millions of stars _— and the lights of the colonies, but from the Earth they, too, looked like stars and he tried to think of them as that, tried to imagine that the space he peered up into was still untouched by human hands.

He wondered if Treize ever looked up at the sky these days, or if the one he was about to see did. He could still imagine Treize doing such a thing, but he had doubts about the latter.

He squinted at a point between the stars, trying to glimpse something beyond it, and he wondered what it would be like to return to space and not stop at the colonies or the distant planet Mars, to keep going until even the Earth was just another small speck of light piercing the darkness, then to keep going until his life was brought to an end or he found something beyond that darkness. He could do it; God knew he was enough of a coward to do it, and for a moment he seriously thought he would. No one knew he was here save for Odin, nor would anyone know if he left, and if he left he would not be missed for days. He could be well into space and to his death by then, if he let the system take his mind. He was about to turn and walk away when something stopped him, not a voice or a sound made by some amateur stalking him, but rather something in the sky.

The moon moved out from behind its cloud cover. Judging by its position in the sky, it was sometime after midnight. Lucrezia would be asleep at the palace by now, safely asleep in her own peaceful dreams while his child grew within her. He was weak, yes, he would admit that to anyone, but he was not so weak that he could take his own life and leave her to the world that would come to be if he failed to complete this mission. That would be something more than weak. That would be pathetic.

He proceeded on to the door at the side of the building. The door was unlocked even at this hour, but he knew there were guards on the other side of it. Not even a complete and utter idiot would leave information such as these people possessed unguarded.

He entered the building. The door slammed shut behind him, and the latch fell into place with a sound not dissimilar to the cocking of a gun.

Two uniformed guards, having left their posts at the juncture of the corridor beyond the room in which Zechs stood after being alerted by the inevitable whine of the door's hinges, started toward him, guns in hand. The first one had once been employed under some kind of military organization, Zechs could see from the man's posture and stance and in the confident way he brandished the weapon, while the second was obviously an amateur. Most of the soldiers who should have been doing this job were dead, Zechs mused humorlessly, and too many of those who had survived had seen too much warfare to want to participate in this work.

That was almost too bad, really. Zechs had a feeling that some of those old soldiers might be needed later on, especially now that it seemed Treize Kushrenada had the support of the sovereign of the Sanq Kingdom.

"I'm sorry, sir," the first guard said, not sounding sorry about it in the least. Zechs smiled faintly at this. "No one's allowed back here."

"I'm here to see Odin Lowe."

The former soldier didn't even flinch. "There's no one here by that name."

"It's in regard to the counteroffensive," Zechs continued, undaunted by the guard's forbidding expression and even more forbidding gun.

The guard did flinch this time, and out of the corner of his eye Zechs thought he saw the other one give a slight smile. Four days later he would berate himself for not realizing the significance of the smile then.

"You know about the counteroffensive?" the guard said, squinting at Zechs.

"Yes, and unlike yourself I actually know what it is," he growled. "Now would you please tell me where I can find Odin Lowe."

The guard gestured toward a lighted room at the end of the corridor with the barrel of his gun. "Ask for him down there."

Zechs nodded and without another word he proceeded down the hall. The second guard — the one who even now couldn't seem to wipe the tight grin from his face — followed him as though he needed an escort. If Zechs had been able to go for his own gun in the shoulder holster underneath the gray overcoat without arousing the guard's suspicion, he might have shot him on the spot. He would later wish he had.

There were three men in the room to which the first guard had pointed him, all of Chinese descent. They were sitting around a shabby table scarred by cigarette ashes and beer spills, apparently playing a rather dispirited round of poker. They all looked up at him expectantly when he entered the room, two of them smiling half-drunkenly, the other with an expression of sublime dread. Upon entering the room, he saw that there was a fourth man sitting in the corner, engaged in nothing, older than the others by several decades, it seemed. He knew immediately that this man would be the only one who had the authority to assist him.

"Can we help you with something?" one of the smilers asked in heavily-Chinese-accented English.

"I need to see Odin Lowe."

The two smilers furrowed their brows in confusion. "I'm sorry," the one said. "I don't think–"

"What do you want with Mr. Lowe?" the fourth man asked, sounding entirely unperturbed. "Would I be correct in assuming this has something to do with the counteroffensive?"

The other three looked at him, and Zechs found himself wondering what the man's explanation for his knowledge of a worker they had never even heard of would be.

"You would be correct," Zechs said, nodding.

The man rose to his feet. "Come with me," he said, and he stepped out of the room. As he passed, Zechs caught a glimpse of the slender, gray tail of hair tied at the nape of his neck. Could this possibly be Rhyn's beloved Yuan-Chen?

Zechs did as asked. The guard followed but kept a comfortable distance behind them.

When they were out of earshot of the other three, the man pointed toward an elevator to their left. "Go down. There will be a man in the office across from the service stairs. You may ask for Mr. Lowe there. I presume you know whom–"

"Yes," Zechs replied. He started for the elevator. The guard tried to follow but the Chinese man quickly grabbed him by the shoulder with a strength surprising for one of his age and thin size. He dropped his gun in surprise and was lucky it didn't go off.

"I'm sure Mr. Marquise is able to find his way there alone," the Chinese man said quietly. "You may return to your post now."

The guard gathered up his weapon and with a begrudging frown on his face, fled down the corridor.

The man smiled placidly. "Odin has informed me of what he has sent you for. I wish you luck in dealings with his 'son', Mr. Marquise."

Zechs nodded. He was not the least surprised that this man knew who he was. If he had not previously been so certain he wasn't being followed, he would have tucked his signature long hair — which was common in Sanq but not here — down into his overcoat.

The man turned and went back to the lighted room.

Zechs went to the elevator. Though he was alone it was rather cramped inside; he believed he had had more room in the cockpit of the first mobile suit he had ever piloted than in here.

The elevator was not well-used and the ride down was slow and silent. He fought against the image that tried to resurface in his mind, the image that had driven it home for him just how good the chances of Treize succeeding in his imperial endeavors really were. An open balcony door, two voices floating from the darkness beyond it. Two shadows, her elegant hand in his, a stolen kiss, and Zechs, unaware of what he was about to see, about to realize, had stepped out onto the balcony and she had turned and—

_Relena!_

The elevator came to a halt. Zechs shook his head, trying to clear the memory of the night's events from his mind, and stepped out into this new corridor.

It was remarkably colder down here than aboveground, and though this was to be expected, the chill only further unnerved him. Something wasn't right about this. He could not sense what it was, not yet at least, but something was wrong here.

He saw a sign reading 'Service Stairs' with an arrow pointing to the left. He walked slowly toward the stairwell, the only sound the solid clicking of his boots against the cement floor. There was an ominous quality to the silence between each step and again Zechs looked over his shoulder. Of course, he saw nothing. No one could have followed him without making some kind of noise and if someone had been waiting on him down here he would have seen some sign of them by now, for these hallways could only offer so much protection for so much time.

His thoughts turned to the guard, to the watchful smile he had glimpsed upon his face, so like the one he had seen upon Rhyn's when first they had met.

He would deal with that later. There was a much more pressing issue at hand now.

He walked to the stairwell. To the side of it, as promised, was a small office. Zechs stepped inside.

The office seemed dark at first, then after his eyes adjusted Zechs saw that it was bathed in soft blue light coming from a series of computer surveillance monitors on the western wall. Every one of the screens displayed a different portion of the corridors leading to this point.

The swivel chair in front of the computers turned and a man — an officer of some rank judging by his uniform — rose from it. He appeared to be alone here but Zechs knew that at any sign of trouble, with the press of a single button he could have one hundred soldiers swarming the halls, weapons in hand.

"Mr. Marquise?" he asked gruffly.

Zechs acknowledged this with a solemn nod. Apparently there was some kind of communication system linking the room in which he had found the four Chinese men and this one.

"How can I assist you?"

Zechs sighed, weary of this whole matter even in its beginning.

_I presume you know whom–_

_Yes._

And he did know exactly who to ask for at this last junction.

"I'm here to see Takeru Hanasaki," he said.

The officer cleared his throat, hung his head for a moment. "This way," he said. He brushed past Zechs into the hall. Zechs followed.

They walked to the end of the wide corridor, their footfalls echoing deeper and deeper into the subterranean level until it sounded as though they preceded an entire phalanx marching into battle. Soon, Zechs knew, they might find themselves in that very situation.

They came to a flight of stairs leading further under the earth. The officer looked back at Zechs as though silently asking him if he was sure he wanted to do this, then led the way down into the darkness.

There was a second flight beyond the landing of the first, and with every step Zechs curiously found himself wondering if this was what it would be like to walk into his own grave.

There was only a single light on this level, lighting the landing and giving a faint illumination to the rooms beyond. They went to the last of these rooms. Zechs would not have to ask for the boy by yet another name inside this room, for inside was none other than the one he wanted to see.

The officer rapped his knuckles on the door, then depressed a button underneath the intercom system. "You have a visitor."

The voice, a bit static and very blunt, was easily recognizable to Zechs and he both shuddered and smiled at the sound of it when the boy answered: "I thought I told you I wasn't to be to disturbed."

"I think this is one disturbance you might want to endure."

All was silent over the intercom for a moment as the boy considered. "Send them in," he said finally. There was a quiet buzzing sound and the locks on the heavy door were disengaged.

The officer opened the door for Zechs and stepped aside to let him in, then let it fall shut again the second he was inside. The locks automatically reengaged.

The room — more of a bunker, really — was even darker than the security office. The only light came from a single computer in the far left corner, and even that light was meager for the screen was black, the only relief from the darkness being the small green words typed across it.

Heero did not take his eyes from the screen when Zechs entered, nor did he speak for the first few minutes following the officer's departure. His right hand was planted over the scroll and numeral keys on the keyboard, and every few seconds the black pages with green writing displayed on the monitor would jump to the next section of the document. There was a scar across that hand, Zechs noticed, one that he was sure hadn't been there when last he had seen him. The scar was colorless, thick and raised above the skin a little, a long cicatricial welt. It began as a straight diagonal slash across the metacarpals starting at the first knuckle, then at his wrist it curved wildly to form a thinner, almost serpentine pattern.

The scar on the former Gundam pilot's hand intrigued Zechs, but he said nothing about it. Such a wound could not be inflicted unintentionally, and he was almost certain he knew who had done it. From what he had gathered through accurate assumption, there was only one person Heero would allow to get by with such an insult to him.

Heero entered a final series of numerical data and the green words were replaced by a green outline of a mobile suit. He studied the image for a moment then said, without taking his dark eyes from the screen, "I should have known it was you."

Zechs didn't reply.

"An operation like this one has your name written all over it. But tell me, Zechs, did you join this one with yet another one of your ulterior motives or are you simply getting back at Treize?"

Zechs smiled dryly. "Perhaps a little of both," he said, and he took a few steps toward the pilot.

"Does Relena know about any of this?"

He stifled the choking sound that threatened to erupt from his throat at the sound of her name. "Yes." His voice was too thick despite his attempts to clear it.

"She supports him, then."

Zechs grimaced at the prospect of this, which he had earlier this evening come to find was true and in more ways than the one to which Heero referred. "I suppose you could say that."

Heero turned his head slightly toward Zechs, lifted an eyebrow. "Does she support him enough to allow him control of the Sanq Kingdom?"

"If things continue on the path they are on, she will give him the kingdom."

Whether or not Heero knew what Zechs meant by this or only partially did Zechs could not tell, but the subject of his sister was dropped and for that, for Heero's basic, unspoken understanding of him, he was grateful enough.

Heero cleared his throat and said, without looking up at him, "I heard Odin Lowe was seen near the Sanq Kingdom. I'm assuming you know something about this."

Zechs nodded, and strangely he found himself wishing he still had the mask that had protected his face and name for so many years. "He went there to speak with me on a matter he no longer trusted to kept discreet if discussed through a computer." This was close enough to the truth.

"I don't blame him for that," Heero said, shifting his eyes up and back to the screen and the hollow image of the mobile suit. "You have to admit: Treize's new soldiers can't fight but they can hack into almost anything they want to. He should've employed them in something other than the actual warfare. They were trained to be civil and formal and observe safely from behind their computer screens, not to get down in the whole bloody carnage of it. That's where Lake Victoria was a waste on you, Zechs."

Zechs was about to agree when an image of Lucrezia floated up in his mind, a mental picture of her as she had been when he first met her, back when her smile was still real and her dark violet hair was still long, back before she had gotten a true taste of battle and death. This image faded and gave way to a more recent one: Lucrezia dressed in a white hospital gown, her eyes dark and sunken, her mouth curled at the corners in a quiet moan of pain, a needle hooked to a glucose IV in one hand and the other hand lying atop her abdomen, resting over his child. _You're wrong about that_, Heero, he thought. _I did get something out of it, and now it appears as though I'm going to be getting another something. _

"What does your presence here have to do with Odin?" Heero asked. He typed in another set of data. The next image that appeared on the screen was the MS's profile.

"He asked me to come here. He has other business to attend to elsewhere."

"I'm doing all that he asked me to do," Heero said, calmly but with a slick note of an almost homicidal bitterness in his voice, "what more does he want?"

Zechs's eyes fell again to the scar bisecting Heero's hand and snaking down his wrist. _Did Odin really ask you to do this or did he tell you to? _

"He asked me to make a request of you," Zechs said, awaiting the pilot's reaction and wishing more now than ever that the silver mask still adorned his head.

"Get to it, then. That's another one of your problems, Zechs, you have to be formal to deliver a message. What does Odin want?"

"He wants you to bring Wing Zero to him."

"Wing Zero was destroyed."

"Badly damaged, yes, destroyed, no."

"They all destroyed the Gundams after the assassination of Dekim Barton."

"Not you, Heero."

"What does Odin want with Zero?"

"He's also requesting that you come with your Gundam." Zechs paused, debating on whether or not he should say this. He decided Heero would see through him anyway regardless. "I'm making that request as well."

Heero looked at him. "What do you want with Zero?"

Zechs didn't — _couldn't — _answer for a minute. He agreed with Odin on the reason why Zero might be needed, but was that really why he wanted Heero to bring his Gundam to Vólos? Or was there another reason as well, one that involved a certain secret constructed of Gundanium alloy hidden in an abandoned hangar only a few miles outside of the pacifist Sanq Kingdom that he had guarded as well as Heero had guarded the knowledge of his own? Was the real reason an unfinished battle and the sick desire to fight that coursed through Zechs's veins as surely as did the pacified blood of the Peacecrafts?

"Odin and I are in agreement," he said finally. "Wing Zero might be needed sometime in the near future. We're not sure when Treize is going to employ the use of his armies, but there probably isn't much time left."

"Probably isn't," Heero agreed. He turned back to his computer and gestured with his unmarked hand for Zechs to go to him. "I want to show you something."

Zechs stood behind the pilot's chair, watching over his shoulder as he keyed in the codes to bring the information he had been going over when Zechs interrupted him back up again.

"The Gemini system," Heero said, still tapping the keys, "Treize has already told you how it works and what it does, right? I'm just assuming you were the one who supplied Odin with the information."

"He has and your assumption is correct."

"Good, then I don't have to explain all this to you." He scrolled down the first five pages. "As you already know, the Gemini system was based on the Zero system. Treize wanted to duplicate the original system and then increase its power, but the people who designed the original are all dead now and what records they kept of it were conveniently stolen."

Zechs gave a faint smile. Lucrezia's first independent mission as a preventer.

"Treize's pawns tried to duplicate the system anyway, and they failed miserably. What they did manage to create, however, was a less powerful version of the Zero, one that leaves the pilot more in control of what he's doing but still has nowhere near the battle capabilities of an MS powered by the Zero."

Zechs nodded. He had heard all of this before but not without Treize's oozing soft-spoken self-confidence. And he knew Heero was getting to something, whichever way he had to take to get to it.

"The Gemini is still perhaps one of the most powerful suits aside from the Gundams, especially since all the other MS's were destroyed following Mariemaia's attempt at a world takeover." Heero scrolled to the next page. "What Treize didn't count on, however, was that someone would stumble across his plans and would organize a counteroffensive. Even if that thought had ever entered his mind, he didn't count on that person being the supposedly dead Odin Lowe."

"What does Odin have against Treize?" Zechs was aware of the hostility between the two, but he had always been spared of the details.

Heero neglected to answer the question. "Before this time he hasn't had much experience with mobile suits but he has the right connections to the people who have. The Sagittarius suit was created to counter Treize's actions."

"And named to mock the OZ organization," Zechs added.

Heero acknowledged this with a nod. "There's one other factor Treize didn't count on, and it's probably the worst, for him at least. He made the mistake of believing that just because he didn't know how to duplicate the Zero system, no one else out there did. He knows you've mastered it but he's still foolish enough to trust you. All the others who worked with the system are dead and pose no danger to him. Except for one."

"You."

Heero nodded. When he spoke, his voice was choked with an emotion Zechs could all too easily identify as regret. "Yeah."

"What does the Zero system have to do with this, Heero?"

"I had to use the system to do it, to implant the mechanism within in the Gemini. Only Zero could have pulled this off."

"What mechanism?"

"Treize underestimates his enemies too much to be an effective leader," Heero continued, as though oblivious to the question. "He looks at battle as a game. He sends undertrained soldiers who don't know their heads from holes in the ground out to fight for him, he convinces them they're invincible, and when the enemy defeats them all he's too amused by it to realize what's just happened. He sets himself up to be destroyed. I think he gets off on it."

Zechs favored the pilot with a humorless smile. "Go on."

Heero tapped the keys again. The first line at the top of the page now displayed read simply 'ZERO ENHANCEMENT.' This cryptic title could have meant any one of a thousand things, but Zechs feared he knew exactly what it was Heero had been leading up to.

"What is this?" He felt the words escape his lips in a thick, stricken breath, weighted words that conveyed his pre-knowledge of what was contained on this disk. Heero glanced at him briefly, and strangely again he saw the image of the woman holding the boy in the picture, like a Japanese Madonna and child. The boy's eyes and the eyes of the ruined young man who sat before him making war plans were the same.

There was a pause, a short silence. Perhaps they were truly the only people who understood this. They were the only ones who had ever surrendered fully to the system, although the pilot 04 had done so once to an extent, the only ones who had gone into a battle to either save or destroy the Earth with the system as their guide, the only ones for whom the system had ever been intended. They two alone had gone as far as the system would allow them, had given everything of their being to it. They knew it as intimately as a lover, and had they not espoused it just as willingly as it had taken them? Had they not used it as a demonic mistress, as a drug? How could they have walked away from all that had happened without gaining some immense understanding of it?

_Zero Enhancement. _The very sound of it, to anyone who had ever had contact with the system, was the thundering of an apocalyptic drum. To enhance something as monstrous as the system, for whatever purposes, to allow not one man but hundreds falls under its power…what he had done was bad enough, but this—

_I am not your enemy._

He almost shuddered at the memory of it.

"It was completed three months ago," Heero said, offering explanation where none was needed, offering without request where had one been issued he would have remained silent. "Odin commissioned it two weeks after the Mariemaia incident."

"And I assume you are the only one he would trust something of this nature to."

Heero merely grunted. "All records of the Zero system have been destroyed. However, I'm sure if Odin has sent you here you're aware of what resources were used to construct the new system."

He nodded, and indeed he did know.

"This system was designed to be implanted in the Gemini, encrypted in its own cockpit system."

"By yourself?"

"No. One of the computer analysts was to do it."

_Rhyn. _He wondered briefly, humorlessly, if it had ever crossed Rhyn's mind to alter the Gemini's original cockpit system to feed the pilot pornographic images.

"We received word about a month after its completion that the system had been successfully implanted."

"What are the chances that someone has discovered it by now?"

Heero raised an eyebrow and looked at him. "Shouldn't you know?" Such a cynically emotionless voice for the one who had once been the calmly smiling child clinging tightly to his rebel mother.

Zechs stifled a scoffing grunt. "I am no longer part of Treize's organization."

Heero showed not the slightest change at this recent development, as though news of this sort was more common than Zechs had previously expected. "He's purging his army of loose ends such as yourself. Are you certain you weren't followed here?"

"Yes."

"Did anything suspicious happen before you came here?"

He thought of the guard at the entrance, the one who had watched him as closely as Rhyn once had during his arrival on Earth but with some strange element like an added malice; he thought of the guard's poorly concealed frustration when the Chinese man had refused to allow him to escort them. Had the guard really had some ulterior motive, or was Zechs only imagining this?

"Nothing that I cannot take care of myself," he replied finally.

Heero responded with a signature "Hn."

The younger man's fingers flew over the keyboard again, opening the file labeled 'Zero Enhancement.'

"This is an advanced version of the original Zero system," he said, dully as though he were discussing nothing more important than changes in the weather.

Zechs raised an eyebrow. "More advanced than the one installed in Epyon?"

"Do you mean the one Treize installed or your own alterations to it?" His eyes didn't move from the screen, though there was an added note of cynicism in his monotonous voice.

"You heard of the test run, then."

"No." He offered no further explanation. He returned his eyes to the computer. "The Zero system was created before its time. The most advanced mobile suits, even a Gundam, are not always equipped to incorporate the system into the computer program that all cockpit functions are based from. Many of the Alliance's older suits would simply have shut down after only a few minutes of employing the system. Even the original Tallgeese would not have been functional with the addition of the Zero system."

Zechs, almost dumbly, nodded.

Heero continued. "To enhance such a system by a slight degree and install it in a mobile suit, even in one as powerful as Epyon, would cause certain difficulties. I'm sure that, as of recent events, you are aware of this, Zechs."

He stifled a reaction.

"To dramatically increase every performance level of the system and install that, however, would cause great damage to a Gundam, and a less advanced suit would be completely disabled."

He glanced up at Zechs as though to confirm understanding, and Zechs nodded. Simultaneously, he found himself remembering what Rhyn had said about the counteroffensive's greatest attack relying on him.

"You would have needed a replica of the Gemini's current system as well as the Zero system to accomplish what you're talking about."

Heero nodded. "Odin arranged for that through one of the others."

"The computer analyst."

"Perhaps."

"When will the effects of the enhancement be realized?"

Heero exited the file. "Not until they go into battle. The system is programmed to fully activate only under certain stimuli."

"And those stimuli would be?"

"The system is linked to the counteroffensive's main computer in Vólos. It will be activated from there."

He nodded, and this simple gesture seemed to end their conversation. Heero closed every file on the computer until the one he had been studying when Zechs had entered the room was displayed on the screen.

"Did Odin request anything else?"

"No. Only that you bring your Gundam to Vólos."

"Hn. I'll send him a message."

"He no longer trusts the computers for these matters. He wouldn't have sent me if he had."

This was the truth, but was truth really why he had said this? Was it to warn the former pilot or to elicit a response from him that would satisfy Zechs's own mind, plagued by dueling images of a stolen kiss and a crimson machine?

"Tell him I'll honor his request then," Heero said after a moment, "but on my own terms."

Zechs gave a soldier's nod and stepped away from him. The first of his evening's tasks was now completed.

Heero did not look up when he turned to leave but instead resumed reading the file. His hand, as though by unconscious force, rose and pressed the button that would open the sealed door.

"Until we meet again, Heero," Zechs said quietly as he started through the doorway, feeling a faint smile cross his weary face.

Behind him, Heero's rhythmic typing halted. "That battle is still unfinished."

"Precisely."

After a moment the typing resumed and the killer of his own men returned to the darkened corridor, and thus exited the life of Sakura Hanasaki's son for the remainder of the Earth's time of peace.

**Author's Notes:** After the prologue, this is actually the first scene that was ever written of this story. It's probably quite obvious that I didn't really know where I was going with Ballad at the time. As I've said before, I at first wanted this to be a story mainly concerned with Zechs and Noin's relationship, and I had thought this would be one of the rare scenes detailing certain war preparations. As it turned out, Ballad became quite the opposite.

I've always had quite a bit of a fascination with the idea of Heero and Zechs continuing the battle they started at the end of the GW series. I almost think that Zechs would consider it unfinished business, something that, regardless of date or location or circumstance, _must _be completed. A new war would merely act to provide the opportunity for that.

Once more briefly on Sakura's name, Zechs is European; therefore, her name is transposed. In upcoming chapters her surname is placed correctly, due to setting.

The next three chapters form what seems to be a favorite section for some readers, which I have jokingly titled the Thoughts Trilogy, the first being called 'Rambling Thoughts with Odin Lowe,' the second 'Suicidal Thoughts with Heero Yuy,' and the third, 'Reflective Thoughts with Zechs Marquise.' These, of course, are not really the names of the chapters, but I once thought it would be funny to call them that back when they were not truly meant to be part of Ballad, but rather character studies.


	17. Chapter Sixteen

_Chapter Sixteen_

**I**

He sat alone in the darkened bunker, a tall, brooding figure, the black of his clothes meshing so perfectly with the upholstery of the great chair in which he sat that he appeared not as a man but rather a dismembered head and pair of hands. He held a cigarette in one strong, steady hand while the other absently stroked his dark mustache. There was a bottle of Wild Turkey on the table in front of him. He appeared to be reading the report displayed on the computer before him, and every few minutes he would indeed skim over a section of it, but in all truth he couldn't have cared less about it. He already knew the information there.

His thoughts, rather, were on the great Prince of Sanq.

Odin still did not fully trust Zechs, and he supposed he never would. He knew Marquise was not going to turn his back on the operation at some crucial point as he had done while with the OZ organization two years prior (as he was still doing now, it seemed, as closely as Treize's new force resembled OZ and considering that, in either case, Zechs was betraying the same person), but, as Odin knew, Zechs's loyalty still did not lay with him. There was only one thing to which Zechs, or rather Milliardo Peacecraft, had remained loyal over the years and that was his precious Sanq Kingdom; two things if Lucrezia Noin were taken into consideration. Zechs had listed several motives for why he had chosen to stand with this clandestine organization, but only Odin knew the true reason. Zechs did not need to have told him — it was written in his piercing eyes, eyes that would, had Odin not forsaken his old principles based on emotion, have inspired a note of pity within him as well as admiration.

It truly had been Zechs Marquise, the Lightning Count himself, who had accepted Odin's proposition. Milliardo Peacecraft was dead, had died in the explosion of the Epyon. Zechs Marquise hadn't had any real spiritual beliefs, only a strict code of morality, but Odin suspected that Milliardo Peacecraft had. He based this suspicion on something Zechs had said shortly after agreeing to join the counteroffensive, as the two of them stood on a landing dock beyond the base that overlooking the ocean, where Odin had often brought up the most serious matters of discussion not because he thought the fresh air would be good for his secluded subordinate, but rather because he believed Zechs would be more honest and clear-thinking if he were able to look upon his native land. Marquise had looked up at the sun, which was beginning to set at this time, at the blue sky beyond that blocked the colonies from view and the wispy clouds that floated on the horizon, and after a minute or so his eyes had taken on a shine that didn't come from watching the setting sun. Odin had thought he intended to maintain his silence for quite a while and he began to walk off, then Zechs stopped him by speaking, his voice rough and deep but with a strange tremor to it as well.

"Some of the things I've done," he said, "I'm not sure how Lucrezia could have forgiven me for them. I cannot forgive myself for them. The people of Earth — they won't forgive me. Relena has only started to, but I don't think she ever will. I don't know if even God will." He paused briefly. "I can't make up for what I've done. I can't even begin to. Even doing this, I will never be able to atone for those sins." He raised his head higher, above the flaming orb in the west. "But I can at least try, can't I?" he asked the air, and the pained expression on his face was one of longing, as though he were trying to peer through space at the Divine Being of whom he had just spoken, begging Him to understand what he was trying to say.

Odin watched him for a moment more, but the man said nothing else.

Such words could have been spoken out of vanity but Odin suspected these had not been. Whatever belief Milliardo Peacecraft had possessed had been passed onto Zechs at some point, whether before he had spent one year dead or after. That same belief — those same words — was what had moved Zechs to join the counteroffensive.

Atonement. He was seeking some kind of atonement for what he had done as Milliardo Peacecraft, atonement through the prevention of a war, and if war could not be avoided, through the resistance and hopefully the defeat of the enemy. Atonement. Odin strangely hoped Marquise would find it, perhaps for the same reason that he hoped Heero would turn back to the life into which Odin had tried to guide him.

He didn't know what had caused the change in Zechs, and he found himself curious as to what he had been like before the metamorphosis.

Odin took another swig of the whiskey.

Zechs Marquise.

Milliardo Peacecraft.

What would he have been like if Odin had taken him in as a ward as he had the boy known as Heero Yuy? Would he have been as good a pupil as Heero? A better one, perhaps? He too had been a survivor of a political assassination, and he too had seen his parents murdered — he had been hurt early on enough in life to be taught how to properly use that pain and how to view the world for what it was really was beyond the battles that plagued it. If Odin had known of the Peacecraft assassination before it transpired, would he have been able to take the boy into his custody and if so, would he have been able to train him as he had Heero?

Questions that constantly troubled his mind, questions to which he was only now getting partial answers.

Odin was not trying, through their contact in the counteroffensive, to train Zechs, although such manipulation had crossed his mind. Marquise was too old now, too full of his own ideas and conceptions of life, and if Odin tried to change those now, God only knew what the fallen prince of the Sanq Kingdom would do. The imbecilic Quinze had attempted this, and in doing so had lost his own life as well as those of thousands of soldiers.

Zechs was a good soldier, an even better operative, but at the same time he was a lost cause. However, Heero was not.

Odin leaned back in the chair, a tight, half-cynical smile spreading across his face.

He found it amusing that the boy, trained to be an assassin of a caliber Odin himself would never be able to achieve, had been given the name of the pacifist leader. He found it even more amusing how quickly the boy had discarded the name once all the warfare and bloodshed was over, returning to the one he had been given at birth by a woman he barely remembered whom he had seen killed right in front of his young eyes when he was still young enough to believe they could not be separated by anything. He had not done this to maintain anonymity, though. Odin could see that through the boy's weak, half-hearted explanations. Just as Milliardo Peacecraft was seeking atonement for what he had done, Heero was doing some kind of penance by adopting his given name. He was forcing himself to remember who he really was and where he had come from, and more importantly how he had betrayed those beginnings. He was much like the Peacecraft prince in that regard, and, Odin supposed, this was at the root of the two pilots' respect for each other, whether they truly liked each other or not. But in the end, maybe it would be Heero who was proven the strongest of the two; after all he, unlike Zechs, had never felt the need for disguises and it was he who was brave enough to rectify whatever mistakes he thought he had made under his true name.

_Maybe Zechs will learn something from you_, _Takeru_, Odin though, but he doubted it. He doubted anything could be learned by these ruined soldiers in this era of tyranny and bloodshed.

Odin sighed, almost wearily. It had been years since he had experienced true weariness, but at times the counteroffensive brought him close to that feeling again.

He left the underground base shortly after midnight. There was still much work to be done before the counteroffensive could be launched in its entirety, and even at that hour close to a hundred people were still on base, some of them working to hack into the main computers of their enemy's headquarters, some finishing the inspection of another mobile suit, and some simply dozing over their file-cluttered desks. Every one of the men Odin passed on his way to the stairwell looked at him when he walked by, not speaking, and a few of them even saluted. Odin nodded at this but he did not particularly enjoy it. He was not the leader of any army and had done nothing to earn the respect of one. He had organized this counteroffensive half for the people of the Earth and the colonies and half for his own personal reasons known to none other than himself, but when the time came for battle he would step down and hand the title of a leader to Zechs Marquise, or perhaps, he supposed, to Heero, to whom he would always refer in his mind as Takeru.

The night was cool and moist, clouded by the mist rolling from the sea. He could smell the salt of the ocean from the abandoned landing platform where he stood, and he crossed the runway to the edge of the hillside, leaning against the rail where he could see the foam-crested waves crash against he shore. He withdrew a pack of cigarettes from one pocket of his long coat, and from the other pocket he took a box of matches. He never had liked lighters very well.

Heero would be coming to the Sanq Kingdom soon. Odin had not spoken with Zechs since he had asked him to give his request to Heero, but he knew the boy would come. He would have to notify the guards at the entrance to the base to watch for a covered transport truck carrying an especially heavy load.

Yes, he would be coming here soon.

Heero.

Takeru.

Young Takeru, of the Hanasaki family who had led one of the first major rebellions against OZ and its sister organization, the Cosmos Arm.

Odin took another drag off the cigarette, flicked it into the placid ocean. He reached inside his jacket and from the interior pocket he withdrew a small, carefully folded newspaper clipping. He unfolded it, and as it always did, even all these years later, his breath still caught for just one moment when his eyes looked into hers.

This was one of several pictures he had preserved of her. Many had been taken that year, some with her husband, some by herself, and even one in which she held her infant child, wrapped in a ripped square of white sheet and safe against his mother's breasts. In all of them, however, except for those in which she appeared alone, she was surrounded by legions of supporters. They had come from all over the world, those people, leaving behind both impoverished tenements and country mansions to join the nameless, unofficial rebel force she and her husband had formed.

In this picture, the woman was being led away by Alliance soldiers. Her husband was behind her, a number of supporters who had gathered with them in a public park that day all around her, and each was flanked by a pair of soldiers. Her hands were bound behind her back, and though this was not visible in the picture, one of the soldiers was pressing a gun into the small of her back. Her head was up and her shoulders were back and there was only the slightest of expressions on her face, and of all the possible expressions in the world it was a smile that touched at the corners of her mouth. She looked as though she were not being led to a small holding cell in an Alliance-held prison where she would be detained for twenty-four hours but instead slowly attaining some kind of salvation through such ordeals. The camera had been closest to her when the shot was taken and almost every detail of her face was visible, from the gleam of the sun on her hair to the smooth almond shape of her eyes to the fullness of her lips.

So beautiful, she had been. Always so beautiful.

The woman in the photograph was the mother of the boy who would one day become known as the Gundam pilot Heero Yuy. Her name was Hanasaki Sakura, her husband's name Nobuyoshi. The caption below the picture read simply PROTESTERS but they had been so much more than that, although now their names were rarely mentioned and there had not been a news headline featuring their picture in close to fifteen years.

Little was known to the general public in regard to where the couple had come from before their emergence as a strong revolutionary force, but Odin had not been general public to them, and he was one of the few people who could, in all rights, properly tell their story.

With the establishment of colonies in space and the Earthsphere Alliance as a major international, intercolonial governing force, many of the Earth's nations had experienced severe governmental as well as economic changes, many of them not for the better. Because of such changes, several nations were forced into returning to some kind of hierarchical system, and a number of countries that previously enjoyed democratic or representative democratic governments found themselves having to turn to monarchy. The Alliance allowed this but only because this would, in the end, do nothing more than suit their purposes.

Japan had not suffered so badly that it required the establishment of a monarch as the governing force but while it maintained the Prime Minister, more power had been shifted to that position, so that absolute power was the only thing that prevented the Prime Minister from receiving the title of emperor.

The same was true of most other nations who maintained a President or Minister of some kind.

The Alliance had promised unto the people, in the beginning, that the Earth was simply suffering changes caused by lack of adjustment to the funding of the space colonies and the need for a supreme organization to assist in all governmental affairs, that supreme organization being the Alliance itself. For a while each country's government remained relatively untouched by the Alliance and even those who had for centuries lived under democratic rule began to enjoy the monarchy — or representative monarchy, in cases of Ministers and Presidents, for that was what they were in reality — and the kind of life that came with it. It was during this time, however, that the Alliance was making its plans to gain total control of both the separated governments of the Earth's countries and those of the colonies.

There had amid all this, however, been places that remained untouched by these political affairs, maintaining an existential existence that drew little or no attention to themselves. One of these such places had been in the mountains of Japan, established long before any records of it had surfaced.

After the assassination of Heero Yuy, his final mission under the employment of the Cosmos Arm, he had wandered the Earth aimlessly, a mere shell of a person. Finally, however, for some inexplicable reason, it had been to these mountains he was called, and it was what had happened there that had saved him, from the Alliance, from the Cosmos Arm, or perhaps only from himself.

He had been accepted into the mountain temple without hesitation, as were most of those who came there, seeking refuge. Within his first year there — which truthfully needed no great description — he had become a scholar of the arts and wisdom practiced there.

His training within the temple had taken less than a year. He supposed that his psychological training his youth in the Scandinavian provinces had played some role in the speed with which he had absorbed everything that the temple masters offered to teach him. He had soon excelled even those who had been born in the sanctity of the temple, and all the while he had never even tried.

Within a year of his acceptance into the temple, he was asked to fight one of the other students.

He never asked about this ritual of the temple, nor had any explanation ever been offered, and despite all his searching he had never found any documentation of it. However, this had done little to prevent him from fulfilling the masters' request.

Only a few of the other students had been present in the central pagoda the evening he was given the black robes that would become his signature within the temple and asked to engage in this form of combat. Most of those surrounding him he had seen before, some of them he had not. The student he was placed against he had known almost since he had come to Japan.

He realized enough that evening to come to a basic understanding of the unnamed ritual. It was not so much a test of concentration on one's abilities as he had at first believed but rather was a test of whether one could become completely oblivious to his surroundings and all the expressionless eyes watching him and focus his mind on his opponent. All of those who were considered masters of the temple had first had to complete these tests to earn their positions, and already they had chosen to test him.

It had hardly been a test for him, though. He had defeated the other student easily and quickly despite the distractions and his own uncertainty, and within the following week he was brought before his next opponent.

It became a cycle, this ritual, one that spanned the course of another season. Each time he was brought before a different student — some of them he knew well and some he knew not at all — and each time he defeated them. After he had gone through this ten times he became aware that he was being ranked among the others who participated in the ritual, who numbered exactly thirty. Of that number, he was told, he had been placed at twenty. From twenty he ascended to fifteen, and from there to ten. He earned something of a reputation among the others for his abilities and this reputation was only increased as time went on.

By the time he had earned the position of the temple's fifth highest student he began to hear rumors of the one who held the first position. Reputed to be young and completely silent when fighting, the only thing known for certain about him was that he could not be defeated. He had completed his training in the temple in youth but continued to fight because another had yet to beat him, it was said, but no one was able to pinpoint when his youth had transpired. His name even was disputed over, as was why, if he were such a remarkable and renowned fighter, he was never recognized. The only one who seemed to know anything outside of the rumors about him was one of the more devoted students Odin had gradually come to know since he had begun his training at the temple, Hanasaki Nobuyoshi.

"He was born into the temple," Nobuyoshi said once after overhearing two other students' disillusioned conversation. "He was given the name Takeru."

"And his family's name?"

Again Nobuyoshi displayed his knowing, secretive smile. "None that I am aware of," he replied. "Or if he has one, it is unknown."

"Have you fought him?" Odin had asked, not out of intrigue with the enigmatic one known as Takeru but rather simple curiosity.

"Yes." No hesitation. "And I have lost to him too. Several times. You will be fighting him soon, at the pace you are going."

And Odin had fought him soon after that discussion, but first he had at last been paired against Nobuyoshi, who had been ranked third amongst them. The fight had been longer than most and more demanding of them both, but eventually Odin had beaten him as well. Strangely enough, it had been this defeat that had forged their friendship and perhaps sealed Nobuyoshi's fate as a martyr.

Odin gained the position of second easily, and three weeks following his fight against Nobuyoshi, he was placed against the infamous Takeru.

There was an entirely new element in the air of the pagoda that evening, some indefinite silence, an air of curious apprehension that was almost enough to unnerve him. A few more candles were lit than usual, a few fewer voices were heard, and all throughout the rooms of the pagoda could be heard the whispered prayers of both the temple masters and the students alike; prayers to God, to ancestors, to the spirits that lived now in the forests and in the mountains; prayers to the great Buddha, to Vishnu and to Krishna and to Brahma and Shiva, prayers to the Holy Christ and to the Blessed Virgin; for every faith that had ever been present within the hearts of those who lived within the temple some prayer was said. And upon seeing these things, Odin had realized something: this great scholar, whomever he really was, was regarded as something close to a living holy relic.

His opponent had surprised him at first sight, and no doubt his surprise had been evident to all around them. The scholar was brought before him rather than the usual opposite, escorted by two masters into the room. As Odin himself was, his opponent was robed in black but in a tighter, smaller outfit, more that of a stealth assassin than one who had dedicated his life to the temple. His head, too, was shrouded in black, leaving only his eyes, two almond-shaped pools of ebony, exposed.

The greatest shock, however, had been in his physical form. This scholar who had gained such a reputation even before Odin had come to the temple, this enigmatic silent fighter who could not be defeated, was only a boy. A mere child, robed in black and shrouded to protect the knowledge of his age. He was not particularly young, it seemed, for he was too tall and too lithely slender to be too adolescent, but nonetheless he had to still be in youth, for his stature and size were too small to be that of full-grown man.

The boy walked toward him, unafraid, without hesitation. His eyes, Odin saw, were of some unearthly ethereal beauty, large and gracefully almond-shaped, carvings of ivory set around two pools of glistening oil, dancing with the shadows cast by the candlelight.

"Takeru," Odin said quietly as they bowed to each other.

The boy whispered in return, "Hai."

Odin paused for a moment, briefly stunned by the word. Was this boy still so young that his voice had yet to fully change?

A strange hush fell over the robed spectators as the fight began. Odin was himself at first too astounded to even move effectively, and within the first few minutes he had twice almost lost his concentration at some greatly crucial point.

The rumors did, in the end, prove to be well-founded. The boy was utterly silent as he moved and made still not a sound as he fended Odin off, though most of this time was spent with Odin on the defensive. He attacked with all the ferocity of the enraged beast yet all the while maintained grace like that of some feline creature, moving like an inhuman spirit, disturbing nothing as he came forward in offense.

In the end, as foretold, Odin lost to the boy. The fight was long and fierce enough to be considered brutal, but ultimately he had not even truly had a chance against the boy.

Thus he was placed second among all the students of the temple who had been selected for this nameless ritual, both those who had only recently completed their prerequisite spiritual training and those who had done so years earlier. His defeat was treated with no alarm whatsoever — there had never been any real question as to who would win.

It would not be the last time he faced the boy, nor would it be the last time he lost to him.

The second time he saw the boy was not during another ritual, but rather in the heart of the temple, in another sacred room of the pagoda that could never be used for such combat.

He often went to this room late in the evening, after the last student had departed and the last candle extinguished, when he could be sure that not even one of the masters would be there; when the sole light was that of the moon pouring through windows with all the stealth and grace of an expert thief, or, as Odin thought, an assassin. Sometimes he prayed there and sometimes he meditated, and sometimes he did nothing at all.

This night, however, the ability to do even nothing eluded him. He assumed his usual place on the floor of the temple, kneeling not as he was taught to do in the west but in the manner of a temple priest, and tried to pray, only to find that he could not think of the proper words. He then tried to meditate and could not, and within the first few minutes of this attempt he realized it was futile to do anything.

So he remained there, head lowered, eyes closed, unmoving on the floor of a temple that had privately been consecrated as so many things that its name no longer seemed truly befitting of it, or perhaps was quite fitting indeed. At last he became aware that he was not alone. He could not hear the movement of another but he knew it nonetheless, could sense it in a way that anyone trained as either an assassin or a practitioner of the Eastern arts could do. He made no move as he waited for the other to do something, giving no sign that he was aware of them slowly approaching him from behind, and strangely he could sense that they knew he was aware of it all along.

The boy emerged from the shadows finally, standing before him like an executioner about to take his life. It was the same boy he had fought and lost to only a week ago, wearing the same slender black robes as he had in the temple the evening they had fought. His face again was covered, revealing only his ethereal eyes, eyes which glistened with an almost holy light under the pale silver glow of the moon that poured in through the open windows.

"Takeru-san," Odin said, looking up at the boy with raised brow. The name would have to suffice as a greeting.

Silently, the boy knelt before him. Odin almost inquired of him why he had come to this most sacred room — but that would have defiled the moment, wouldn't it? — but before he could, the boy raised his arms and began to unwind the black cloth that covered his face. Odin watched raptly, struck by the epiphany of the moment before the cloth began to expose the boy's smooth skin beneath it, as the face became not that of an older adolescent but a woman.

She was beautiful, he saw immediately, so beautiful that he, a man who would in the years to follow become known for his stoicism, was almost blinded by the sight of her. She was younger than he, her face retaining the innocence of a child still, but she could not be mistaken for a child under any circumstances. Her skin was the color of the finest ivory under the celestial light, glowing as though from some inner illumination; her lips, though unchanged, as was her face, by the use of any cosmetics, were of some pale red color, full and slightly curved into a small natural smile. Her cheekbones were high and so evenly perfect they seemed truly to have been sculpted by a god, and though she wore the black clothes of a nameless, faceless scholar, kneeling before him on the floor in a humbled pose, she appeared nothing less than an empress.

Again she reached up and removed two nondescript pins from her hair. Loosened, it fell from its tight bun over her shoulders in shimmering waves of black, the dark mantle of a forgotten saint.

He was so astounded by the sight of her that he could not speak.

She did not seem fazed by his silent reaction. "Watashi wa Sakura desu," she said formally, then translated, as though he did not know Japanese, "My name is Sakura."

At last he found his voice. "They say you have only one name. Is this true?"

She graced him with a knowing smile. "Did Hanasaki Nobuyoshi tell you this?"

"He confirmed it, yes."

"He does seem to enjoy adding to the rumors about me," she said, her heavy Japanese accent lending her words an almost musical lilt. "However, I do have another name."

He waited; she smiled.

"Hanasaki," she said after a moment. "My name is Hanasaki Sakura. I am Nobuyoshi's wife."

He was not in the least surprised by this revelation.

"You are friends with my husband, are you not?"

He nodded.

"He speaks of you often. So do the masters of the temple."

He raised an eyebrow. "Are you actually one of them?"

Her smile faltered slightly. "No. I cannot be. My gender prevents it." She paused for a brief moment, then continued, her voice calm, quiet, calculated as Odin's own often was. "I have not come here to discuss that with you."

"Then why have you come?"

"I was searching for someone," she replied. "And it is known that he sometimes comes here at night when no one else is…do I disturb you?"

_No. Your face alone enlightens me._ "No, you do not," he answered.

She wasted no time in getting to what she had come for. He would later realize that she never wasted time in anything. "You are the one that killed Heero Yuy, are you not?"

All the time he had spent in training, all the hours he had spent in contemplation of the Eastern wisdom and the techniques of controlling one's emotions, could not have prepared him for this. His eyes bulged in their sockets — such a strange feeling such a shocked expression was upon his calm face — and had he not immediately caught himself his jaw would have become unhinged.

She held one slender, ivory-in-the-moonlight hand up to cease his protest and graced him with a serene smile. "You do not have to deny it. I know. I mean to ask you something about his death."

His mind raged in light of her impenetrable calmness. "How–"

"Because of your movement," she replied. Her smile made her seem less a saint and more an Asian goddess, one whose worship had been preserved only in these mountains. "Your movement and your eyes. That must suffice as an explanation, for it is the only one I may give. You were an assassin before you came here, were you not?"

He surrendered any hope of protesting. "Yes."

"And for whom did you kill?"

"I worked for anyone willing to give a good price at first."

"Trained from youth, I suppose."

He gave a solemn nod. He had never spoken a word of this to anyone — not even to the boy, not yet born at that time, who would later become this woman's son and a few years after that Odin's own ward — yet (and perhaps it was because he was still too stunned to think clearly) he told her without reservation. "Off the coast of Greece, yes, and for a few years in Scandinavia. Then I was employed by the Alliance."

"Which branch of the Alliance?"

"The Cosmos Arm." It was only now that he was able to look into her eyes again, and in them he saw something like a spark of interest.

"Have you killed since Heero Yuy?"

He shook his head. "No. For all the Alliance knows I was killed trying to flee."

"Is that the way you would have them believe it?"

"Yes."

She leaned closer to him. Rustle of silk in the moonlight. Did her husband know she was here?

"You have a gun in your chambers. Tell me, assassin, do you intend on using it here?"

He did not hesitate. "Never."

"Then why have you kept it?"

He thought, tried to answer, could not. He himself did not know why the gun had remained with him when he had come to the temple.

She reached out, touched his hand in a surprising gesture of assurance and offered him a slight smile. "I have not come to accuse you of anything, merely to ask."

He swallowed slowly, unable to tear his eyes away from hers. "And what is it that you wish to ask?"

She released him. "When you killed him, when you watched him die, did you feel anything? Did you sense, perhaps, something like a great, glorious fire going out?"

Under the scrutiny of her gaze and the shock of her words, he could barely think back to that day, yet he remembered this clearly. "No," he replied finally. "I felt nothing, other than the sudden realization of what I had done."

Her eyes narrowed in brief consideration. After some immeasurable amount of time, she nodded and said, "It is just as well that you did not. In the span of a few years, a life such as that of Heero Yuy is a miraculous flame, but in the span of history it is nothing but a few brief seconds of light. The world did not cry out with his death if you felt nothing. Only men did." She rose quickly, gracefully, and started toward the open doorway. "Thank your for your answer," she said before she would have left the room. "I will be watching you, assassin."

"Sakura-san," he called after her, surprised at how easily the name slipped from his tongue, although he had only tonight learned it.

She stopped, waited. Her dark eyes turned back to look at him.

"I did not wait to watch him die," he said. "I ran the second after I fired the bullet."

"Hn." This was her only response for some time. When at last she spoke again, she retreated a few steps back into the room. "You have given your name as Odin Lowe. Is that your real name?"

He nodded. "Strangely enough, I have never found a reason to use another one."

Another step toward him. "I would not have taken you for such a coward, Odin," she said. "One as strong as yourself should have had the courage to remain until he had died. Only a coward does not finish what he begins. I would hope that if my life were to be taken in such a manner, my assassin would have the strength to stand over me while I die."

With that horrible precursor she left the room, leaving him in the empty silence. He remained there until dawn, too stunned to do anything else, and when at last he was no longer disoriented by all that had just been revealed, he had a slight premonition of how much, ultimately, this woman would change his life.

**II**

Life continued as usual the following day at the temple, unaffected by his encounter with the woman the previous night. Odin was consciously amazed by how well he functioned all throughout the morning, even though the only thing his mind could focus on was the woman.

Nobuyoshi found him later in the evening and stopped him, smiling his signature beautifully mischievous smile. "Sakura tells me that she spoke with you last night."

Odin nodded, maintaining his composure as he had scarcely been able to do while confronted with this man's wife. "She did."

"She is quite interesting, no? Believe it or not, her name suits her."

"I never doubted that it did."

"Are you disappointed that you lost to her?"

"Absolutely not," Odin replied, and it was true. Just as he had never been disappointed at being defeated by what he had believed to be a young boy, nor was he now that he knew the boy was in actuality a woman. In fact he had hardly given thought to the discovery at all; what plagued his mind was not what the woman had done but what she had said. _I would not have taken you for such a coward, Odin._

He became aware that Nobuyoshi was speaking to him, and Nobuyoshi laughed upon realizing Odin wasn't listening. "She would not tell me what she wanted to speak to you about. Was it so interesting?"

Odin thought for a moment. Interesting, yes, of course. Interesting and astounding, to say the very least. Finally he gave a slight nod, as though the previous evening had affected him not at all.

Nobuyoshi continued, as was so habitual for him to do when he did not hold the listener's full attention. Odin answered his questions unconsciously.

He glimpsed the woman again several times the following day, and seeing her so regularly in a usual setting made him realize how often he had seen her before in the past and had simply failed to notice her, though how that was possible he did not know.

He saw her first as the dawn commenced, outside the temple with a group of monks who gathered each morning by a stream that ran down the side of the mountain, where Odin often walked as the sun rose. She sat apart from the monks, farther upstream and askew from their row, dressed perhaps ceremoniously as they were in full, simple robes of white, an aesthetic contrast to their robes of orange. He had almost passed by them when he realized that he had seen this exact same tableau before.

The woman's head was bowed, as were the monks', her hands folded neatly over her knees, and somehow she seemed to praying rather than meditating.

_And what is it that you pray for, Sakura, my dear? _he thought before he could stop himself, then banished it from his mind when she opened one large eye and looked up at him.

He saw her again in the middle of the day, following several yards behind a line of quietly chattering women, silent, uninvolved. He wondered if she were really ever a part of anything.

She was alone the next time he saw her, once more outside the temple, practicing without an opponent the proper maneuvering of a Chinese sword. She barely took notice of him as he watched her, but he was certain she was aware of his presence.

There passed hardly an hour that day that he did not glimpse her somewhere.

He was approached again that evening by Nobuyoshi, who came to him smiling mischievously as always. "Tomorrow evening," he said, fidgeting excitedly as a child might, "you are to fight her again. Sakura herself has requested it." He started to say something else, paused, then added, "She seems to have taken interest in something about you." In that first year before they would all be linked permanently together, this was the most Nobuyoshi had ever said about his wife. Odin could easily understand this. Somehow it seemed disrespectful to speak of her without her being present.

He did as asked and went to the pagoda the following day after the sun had set over the side of the mountain. The masters of the temple were already there, joined this time by Nobuyoshi, and it seemed that most of the former tensions that had been present in the air the first time he had been placed against Sakura had dissipated.

As before, Sakura arrived after him, alone, unveiled, unmasked. Her black eyes glistened in the soft lantern-light.

If she had looked like an empress in her black fighting attire, she truly was a goddess tonight. Her black outfit had been cast off for layers of white, billowing robes, enclosing her small figure like the six wings of a seraph. Her black hair was let down, framing her stunning face as no veil could ever so beautifully do.

A goddess, yes, not the succulent Aphrodite but Artemis, a pillar of strength that needed nothing upon which to lean or to fall.

Her husband went immediately to her, kissed her briefly on her perfectly sculpted cheek. She spoke quietly to him, as calm in speaking to her husband as she was in speaking to Odin, as calm as she was in fighting. He wondered if anything could elicit some emotion from her.

She took note of him then, raised her head in questioning. He nodded.

A hush fell over the room when she walked toward him. They met in the center of the room, bowed to each other.

"Did I not tell you I would be watching you?" she whispered. Her eyes met his. "I wish to speak to you after."

"Hai."

The fight lasted longer than their first, perhaps because of the woman's apparent distrust of him, perhaps because of his own knowledge of who she really was. Ultimately, however, it was she who won. Odin was pleased to see that her expression did not change as she defeated him.

She offered her hand to him as if he needed assistance in rising. He took it, sensing her motive, and as he stood she whispered, "Before midnight, where the monks gather in the morning. Will you come?"

He gave a brief, discreet nod.

She whirled around and left him as if there had been no exchange between them.

The small crowd that had gathered in the pagoda dispensed as quickly and thoroughly as surely they had come, leaving Odin as the only one who remained in the room where so many of these ritualistic competitions had taken place for God-only-knew how many years. Indeed, he did linger for some time, feeling as though he were on the verge of some strangely pivotal epiphany but unable to fully grasp it. When at last he left, he found someone waiting for him in the corridor.

The hand, slender and light and aged even then, clasped his shoulder as he stepped out of the doorway. Odin spun to face whomever had touched him, expecting the woman and finding someone different entirely.

"She has taken an interest in you," the man said, speaking in perfect English with only a moderate Chinese accent. Odin recognized him immediately as Xing Yuan-Chen, one of the masters of the temple who, it seemed to Odin, had been there since the temple had come into existence.

Odin merely waited.

"She has taken an interest in you," Yuan-Chen repeated, "and her interest disturbs her. I trust that you are aware of this."

He nodded. "Or something of the like."

"She distrusts you–"

"I have gathered that."

"—and she has distrusted you since you came here. To answer the question you are about to ask, yes, she has been watching you almost since that time."

"She has told you this?"

Yuan-Chen gave a slight nod. It was rare to see him perform a more exaggerated gesture. "She has. Sakura considers me as an advisor to her, of sorts. She has voiced her concerns to me and I have told her to do as her conscience dictates. You would be wise to let down your defenses around her."

Odin started to ask him another question but before he could, Yuan-Chen turned and walked down the same corridor the other masters had gone down earlier, moving as silently as a specter. Odin considered following after him and thought better of it. He would get nothing else from the elder man. Yuan-Chen had said all he needed to.

Odin returned to his own chambers on the other side of the temple. There he remained until an hour before midnight; somehow he knew she was already waiting for him.

He waited a few minutes, then decided it would be better if he did not make her do the same.

The night was cold and clear, he saw when he left the temple, without moonlight and on this face of the mountain, without the lights of the cities below. A few stars were visible where the lanterns that lit the outer walls of the temple could not shine, and looking up into the sky seemed, on this night, to be more like looking through some tear in the fabric of what was accepted as real into the great abyss of eternity.

He started toward the place where he was to meet her. The lights did not seem to fade as he went farther from the temple, for every time the light of one lantern began to darken he came upon the path of another. Even when the temple itself appeared at slumber in the night, there were many who left it and all its many shrines and altars to come pray or meditate alone on the mountainside.

As he neared the place where the stream cut through the woods of the mountain, a voice, soft and calm, broke the silence of the night. He paused and peered beyond the glow of a lantern to see a man, younger than himself, kneeling before a small silver statue, his head bowed and his eyes closed, whispering a Hindi prayer. He seemed oblivious of Odin's observant presence, bathed in the firelight that gave to his dark skin a dancing bronze tone, and though Odin could not discern a word of the prayer he spoke, somehow it seemed to make the very ground beneath him and the faint stars overhead sacred.

"It is all very beautiful, is it not?" a voice said behind him. He turned and saw her standing by a tall weeping tree, watching the scene as he had only a second ago. She had changed clothes since their fight — gone were the billowing white robes of earlier, replaced now by a slender white silken kimono. Her dark hair had been pulled back into a tight bun above the nape of her neck, held into place by two ivory sticks.

"Are you Sakura or Takeru now?" Odin asked, his voice more sardonic than he had intended. _Let down your defenses around her._

She seemed to take no notice; rather, she offered him a vaguely warm smile. "Sakura," she said. "The name Takeru I use only when circumstances do not seem befitting of a woman."

He nodded in agreement. "Is there anything special about that name to you?"

"I am merely fond of it," she replied. She stepped away from the tree. "Shall we leave here? If we do not, we may interrupt something that is best uninterrupted."

He nodded and followed after her as she proceeded further into the woods.

"Nobuyoshi enjoys your company," she said after they had walked for a few minutes. "He is beginning to suspect what you are but he is not yet certain. I have told him nothing."

Something occurred to him as she said this, and the words left his mouth before he could prevent them. "Why do you feel the need to protect him?"

"Because I am stronger than he, and therefore it is my duty."

"Do you honestly believe that I am a threat to him?"

She stopped and turned to look at him. Her eyes met his unabashedly, searching his very soul. "You have a gun, do you not?"

_Let down your defenses. _"Yes."

"And you have used it in the past."

No hostility, only a bare honesty.

"Yes."

"Would you use it again?"

"No. Never."

"Not even against those who orchestrated Heero Yuy's death?"

Hesitation. _Let down your defenses around her._

"Which is it, assassin? Yes or no?"

"I am afraid I would not know unless I were placed in that situation," he replied, and it was the best answer he could give.

Sakura stared into his eyes a moment longer, unblinking, then turned and walked onward, pushing aside the tree limbs that obstructed their path with a graceful gesture of one silk-covered arm. "We are all safe here," she said, her voice softening. "The rest of the world goes on all around us, but we are untouched by it. No one here knows anything of the Earthsphere Alliance or the affairs of the colonies in space."

"I didn't come here to threaten that."

"I know that is not your intention, but you could indirectly do it nonetheless. Could they find you here? The ones who wished for Heero Yuy's death?"

"No."

"Are you certain of it, Odin?"

"Yes."

"Hn." This was all she said for some time. It was a response Odin would become accustomed to years later, as it would be her son's most frequently used word.

They came finally to the small clearing, to the stream that gleamed like molten silver under the light of the stars. Sakura sat on the ground beside the stream, drawing her legs underneath her, and motioned for Odin to do the same.

"You have impressed the temple masters," she said when he was seated, watching him serenely as she spoke. "They have spoken of admitting you into their ranks. They say you are a truly enlightened individual."

"I have heard the same of yourself."

"From Nobuyoshi?"

"Yes, and from others who know you."

Her gaze faltered briefly, as though in shame. "They are all mistaken. I wish it to be true. I have studied in this temple since childhood and I have been trained even more extensively than most monks, but I have yet to achieve enlightenment. I fear I cannot. My mind, unlike yours, Odin, is chaos."

"What do you mean?"

"I have chosen not the life of a proper lady, nor that of a proper wife. I am a scholar, and with that comes an awareness that will not allow me to earn the mental calm that you have."

_Let down your defenses. _"There is something else too, isn't there, Sakura?"

A stifled sigh, a brief sign of reaction. "I was born here in this temple, as were many of the others here. Most of the others have very little conception of life beyond this mountain. Unfortunately, I do. Nobuyoshi and I were in the same situation as children."

"How so?"

"We were both orphaned. His mother died in childbirth, and his father left the temple soon after, while Nobuyoshi was still in infancy."

"And your own parents?"

"Killed by Alliance soldiers while making a visit to a friend in Osaka. The friend — I never knew his name — was suspected of being a terrorist against the Alliance. My parents were trying to persuade him to come to the temple with them when they returned. The Alliance raided Osaka while they were there, arresting twenty-seven people they believed to be their opponents and killing fifteen others. My parents were among the latter. Do you yet understand why I have watched you?"

He nodded.

"We are not all of us oblivious to what is happening all around this mountain. There are many within the walls of the temple who each day must disguise the fear that the Alliance will soon tire of its games with the colonies and turn their sights on places like this. You can bring them here, Odin. Do you realize that? If the Alliance even suspected you had come here, they would not hesitate to attack."

He nodded again, both in agreement and consideration.

"You said you were hired specifically by the Cosmos Arm, did you not?"

"Yes."

"And what were the names of the men who put out the contract on Heero Yuy?"

He thought for a moment. He had hoped to never have to think of those bastards again. "High General Septum, Dekim Barton–"

"Him," she said suddenly, and she spat upon the ground. "Dekim Barton. He is as old as these mountains are ancient and as evil as the black blood of a demon of Hell."

Odin blinked, silently stunned by her reaction. "Who is he to you?"

"It was under his command that Osaka was raided. Giving the order was not enough for him, though. He personally led the attack, and he personally killed both of my parents. Did you have much contact with him in your contact with the organization?"

"No. I saw him only twice in the organization, both times while going over the contract for the assassination. He couldn't let it become known that he was one of those arranging Yuy's death. He was, if you recall, supposedly a friend to him. But as for knowing him personally, I did."

She raised a questioning eyebrow.

He continued at her silent prompting. "The Alliance faced opposition from the day of its creation. Often such opposition came from nameless groups, unknown vigilantes who bombed a base during the night or sabotaged the organization's plans. Sometimes, however, as you are aware, a name would become known to them. The Cosmos Arm was created, originally, to handle such situations. The creators of the Arm had no desire to gain a bloody notoriety and in the cases of individual rebels, a hired assassin was more prudent then full military force."

She urged him on with a slight nod. Her eyes had taken on a cynical shadow, and he knew that this moment would somehow work to define her opinion of him beyond the one she seemed to have already formed.

"I had already gained a discreetly notable reputation among the circles to whom this would matter as a well-trained assassin. Dekim Barton stumbled across this information and hired men to follow me for several months, each with a different contract to offer, and when they failed he approached me personally."

"Hn. Then perhaps you would like to differ with my opinion of him."

"Not at all. On the contrary, I agree with you whole-heartedly."

She looked away from him; her eyes went to the sparkling, laughing stream beside them. She stretched forth one pale hand and let the water run over it as though cleansing some inner stain. "He is the devil's advocate, though even the devil would be repulsed by one so lowly as he. My children shall spit upon his grave."

"Have you any children, Sakura?" he asked, knowing that if the subject were not changed the woman's hostility toward him would only increase.

She returned her gaze to him. "No, I have not. It will one day be expected of me, though. Nobuyoshi would be pleased by a child. Sometimes he is still rather like one himself."

Later Odin would realize how much insight into the relationship between this woman and her husband this remark offered, an insight that would one day seal his fate with her. He thought of Nobuyoshi's mischievous nature, of his laughing, good-hearted childishness, then of the woman's calm solemnity. The suspicions he formed in that moment would later by confirmed by Yuan-Chen.

The two of them sat there in silence for a while, Odin's eyes trained on her as her own were closed in placid, almost pious contemplation. Several times he almost spoke and each time he decided against it. Once, as though in response to something only she could hear, she gave another low, muttered "Hn."

When at last she opened her eyes, the darkness had begun to slink back from the east and the silence was pierced by the beginning of the bird songs that daily filled the mountain forest. Sakura surveyed the woods, the sky, for a moment and a gracious smile illuminated her ethereal face.

Much later, Odin would come to believe it was at that moment he began to love her.

"Tell me, Odin" she said turning her back to him. "What is the sunrise like over the colonies?"

"In appearance it is the same," he replied. "But it is colder, and once inside the colony the lights becomes artificial. A manmade sunrise, even when made using the light of the sun as it comes into view, is not worth the effort required to produce it."

She considered this for a minute. "Still," she said finally, "I would like to see it." She rose to her feet and started back in the direction of the temple. Odin followed after her.

"Do you understand why I watch you now?" she asked him as they walked through the brush and ducked under the low tree limbs.

"Yes," he answered, and now he truly did.

"We live in peace here. No one seeks to cause harm to another. Children are untouched by the conflicts that occur all around these mountains. All are free to live as they choose, to believe as they choose. Former soldiers and naïve pacifists born under this roof may sit together without hostility toward one another. Practitioners of every faith that has ever advocated peace pray together. We are untouched by war. You could change all of that. As the hired murderer of Heero Yuy, you are of extreme value to the Alliance. If they were even to suspect that you had come here, all that we have worked so hard to preserve would be lost in an instant. I ask you to keep this in mind."

He nodded silently.

They reached the spot where Odin had found the Hindi man praying that night. The lantern was gone but the man was still there, gathering up all that he had brought into the night with him.

"_Ohayo_," Sakura called out to him, her voice echoing in the morning quiet.

The man looked up at her and smiled warmly. He spoke to her briefly in his native tongue, which she seemed to have no trouble in understanding.

"That man," she said to Odin after they had passed him, "is a known Indian mystic. He once told me years ago that I was a soldier in a former life. He told me that I am still a soldier in this life but in a different way. He says that one day the perfect soldier will be within me. Would you agree, Odin?"

"I would like to," he replied, and thus ended their conversation. His interaction with the woman, however, was about to increase.

Sakura's prediction proved true in the following weeks. Odin was initiated as a master of the temple and was released from the limits of students, giving him the right to come and go throughout the temple as he chose. His life was no less full in the absence of routine, however, for he soon found himself constantly in the woman's company. Nobuyoshi was the cause of this, for once Odin reached his high status Nobuyoshi was incessantly suggesting this or that document in the temple's library or spending the day at some other place on the mountainside, away from all the signs of life of the temple, and wherever Nobuyoshi went now, it seemed, his wife accompanied him. Odin thought that it had most likely been this way before, when his duties as a student had not allowed him to leave on whim.

He would, in the years to follow, look back on that year after his initiation as a master as the most fulfilling of his life. During that time he learned fully what it was that was kept so well-preserved in the mountains, the true extent of that peace Sakura had once been so terrified of him bringing to an end. There were days in that year in which he simply could not remember anything of the past, his first paid murder, his agreement to work with the Alliance. There were days when the name Heero Yuy meant nothing to him. It would seem ironic years later that he would rely on remembrance so much while in the days he remembered, the past had not existed to him.

Sakura's distrust of him eventually dissolved, and she told him such. This she followed with another warning to remain unseen by the world at the foot of the mountain. She herself would be the one to draw the Alliance's attention to them within the closing of the year.

His intrigue with Sakura did become whatever amount of affection a stoic could possess, and that eventually evolved into the realization that he did indeed love her, that he had loved her since that night spent away from the confines from the temple.

Sakura, he was sure, suspected it the entire time, not through any fault of his but simply because she always seemed to know whatever entered his mind. Nobuyoshi, however, was unaware that the man he had befriended the previous year had developed such feelings for his wife. Odin did and said nothing to encourage such a suspicion and even if he had, Nobuyoshi was not intuitive enough to realize it. Or perhaps he simply chose not to.

The three of them were often together even after Odin could no longer deny within his mind his betrayal of his friend. He and Sakura went from being conversational adversaries to a pair of likely companions, and within months the three of them had become something of a strange type of family, a trio of orphans who really knew only each other. From time to time Sakura asked him another question regarding his past, and always he tried to provide the best answer. Nobuyoshi, on the contrary, seemed uninterested in the matter, and perhaps this was for the best.

He did not know when precisely it was that Sakura realized his inexplicable and sudden feelings for her. She acted no differently toward him, nor did she make any attempt to avoid him. He would later wonder if things would have happened differently if she had.

In the summer of that year, only five months prior to the Alliance's attack, Odin was again stopped by Yuan-Chen, with whom he had by this time become better acquainted. Even so, Yuan-Chen (as he did with Sakura) spoke to him only when spoken to first, or when he believed his guidance was necessary.

"Your friendship with her has become not quite so innocent," Yuan-Chen said to him one evening after silently beckoning him aside, a blunt statement that left no room for questioning.

Odin merely waited, confirming or denying nothing.

"She has not spoken to me of the matter, but she is well aware of it all the same."

"I was under that assumption as well."

Yuan-Chen continued. "Neither has she told me that she requites you."

Odin blinked. "She is faithful to her husband."

Yuan-Chen gave a characteristic slight smile. "In body and mind she is faithful to him. In her heart she is faithful to you. She does not need to tell me this. Once one knows Sakura well, it is quite obvious."

He suppressed a questioning expression.

"There is no need for concern," Yuan-Chen said. "The only ones of us who know of this other than myself are those to whom it will not matter. It is something we have seen before and will see again long after you are gone."

_After you are gone. _It would not strike Odin until long after the incident with the Alliance that with these words Yuan-Chen had implied he would see Odin leave the temple, either by death or choice, and he would wonder if likewise the old man had foreseen Sakura's fate as well.

"She has never belonged to him in heart or soul." Yuan-Chen went on. "She did not in youth gradually develop love for him in the sense of what you feel for her, nor did she suddenly realize she felt such things as you did. Sakura and Nobuyoshi were companions in childhood, yes, and companions they would have remained had Nobuyoshi not desired her in a way she did not desire him."

Yuan-Chen paused in time for Odin to make another realization. "It was an arranged marriage," he said, and Yuan-Chen nodded.

"As are many marriages within this temple. Some are not but as tradition half of all are, and that of Sakura and Nobuyoshi was one of his latter half. They had both completed their training here, and though Sakura was by far the better student, Nobuyoshi was considered one of excellence as well. Often in the case of marital arrangements, if one was born within these walls or was ever a student here, they are placed with another of their rank. Nobuyoshi made it clear, not directly, however, that he did indeed desire to marry one of his rank and that one was Sakura. She was not forced into the marriage, however. There are many here who choose not to marry. I myself am one. It was brought to her attention that, if she were to choose it, a husband had been found for her. She was not at all surprised to learn that it was her friend. She asked for time to consider it and time was granted. Only days after she came to us with her decision. There are several reasons she accepted it, I believe. One was her caring for Nobuyoshi, whom she had looked after when they were children. He was a younger brother to her, her child at times. Sometimes he still is. Sakura has always been stronger than he, and she believes her superior strength obligates her to act as a guardian to him."

"She has said similar to me," Odin agreed.

"The most dominant of her reasons was her feelings of obligation to the temple. Tradition will not allow her to become a true master, though you are aware that she is regarded as one. At that time she was not the legend she has become in recent years, and becoming the wife of a man of high rank and the mother of children who would be raised in the temple and would go on to achieve what she could not would have been the most honorable thing for her to do. It was not her own honor that led her to her decision, however, but the honor of the temple, and its continuance. She would take a husband and give herself to him, and by doing so she would provide the temple with another child, or perhaps children, who would in turn produce more. That was once of great importance to her and still is, though deep within her heart Sakura is afraid to bear children, which is why she has not yet conceived and perhaps never will. She has told me that sometimes she finds it hard to believe in _Takaamagahara_, in Heaven, a paradise, nirvana, a Valhalla, and sometimes she believes that those places may very well be here. She is terrified of this place dying. You must understand this, Odin. Sakura knows nothing but the life of this temple. Nothing. Tell me, Odin, have you seen the Parthenon?"

Odin nodded. "Yes, of course."

"And the Great Wall in China?"

"Yes, as you yourself have."

"And the great Imperial Palace of the Sanq Kingdom of Greece?"

"Yes, why?"

"To you and I these things are real, are concrete. We have looked upon them, we have stood in awe of them in their presence. We know that they are real. To Sakura, however, these things are mere legend. She knows that they exist and yet she has not seen them to fully realize it. This is all that she knows, all that she has touched. To her there is no existence outside of this mountain. But she realizes at the same time how fragile the illusion is. And she would do anything to preserve it, even surrender the independent isolation she has lived upon all these years. Marriage grounded her to the temple and provided her with a way of giving something back to the temple, and what better to give than her very life and a child born of the highest-ranking woman to ever live under the temple's roof?

"In other words," Yuan-Chen continued. "She thought of it as her mission and despite any illusions she might hold, Sakura will never fail to complete what she believes is her mission. She will never fail to accomplish what is expected of her."

"And what is expected of her now?" Odin asked, and what was it that he had felt as he listened to Yuan-Chen's account of her marriage, of how she had been bound to this man whom it was clear that she loved but not in the way that was required? What was it that pierced his already-faltering stoicism, but a rising satisfaction, a stab of assurance, a damnable inner smirk at the knowledge that the woman did not truly belong to another? Could his betrayal have been so great that he should feel inwardly glad of all this?

"Nothing," Yuan-Chen replied. "Sakura had surpassed all the previous expectations. She will do as she feels. We have no say in the matter and neither do you, Odin. As I understand it, this is the first occasion in which this subject has been breached, is it not? It does not matter whether or not you directly make any of this known to Sakura. She will act as her conscience dictates, or perhaps she will not act at all. It is her decision, Odin. Leave it as such." He paused, studying Odin's face. "Does hearing this please you? You are human, Odin. You are human now as you were the eve of your birth, as you were the day you were taken from your ruined home by those who would teach you to hold no value for human life. You are as human now as you were when they tried to beat all of that out of you. You are as human now as you were the day you killed Heero Yuy. And you are indeed human now, just as Sakura is. You have unwillingly given to her something that you hold very dear. That is the nature of humanity. Each of us must give so much of ourselves to something, and we can only receive so much in return. Sometimes we receive nothing at all. I have given all of my life, which has indeed been long, to this mountain. What have I received in return for that life? Nothing, save for solitude. This mountain does not care whether I live or die. If I were to disappear from its sheltering face, it would not take notice. You are still yet learning this Odin. You have been a stoic for the largest duration of your life, and now you have begun to feel for a woman who is not free to openly requite you. This is not a punishment, nor is it a torture. It is merely life."

Eventually Odin nodded. It was the only thing he could do.

"Given the circumstances, however, it is almost a pity that Sakura could not foresee that she would surpass what was required of her to be a wife and a mother."

Odin looked at him. "How so?"

"There has been discussion of you perhaps being a more suitable husband for her than Nobuyoshi."

He blinked. "Discussion among the masters, you mean?"

Yuan-Chen nodded.

"I have not heard it."

"That is because we were discussing the matter before your initiation into the order." Another pause, to give Odin time to grasp this. "Do not mistake me," he continued after a few minutes. "They are both dearly loved among all who live in this temple, and they were and are great friends. But as I have said and as Sakura herself has confessed, it seems, Nobuyoshi will forever be something of a sibling to her, someone to take care of in place of a more suitable guardian. He unconsciously relies on her to be the strong one. He depends upon her, in other words, and when he needs to, he falls on her, bleeds on her. But even so, Sakura is no great pillar of strength, although she tries to be. She from time to time requires something to fall upon as well. Her husband cannot fulfill that role. She has chosen you, Odin. Be glad of that and let the rest of this vital foolishness go." Yuan-Chen hesitated not even a moment after he spoke these words. He turned and left Odin standing alone in the corridor, having said his peace and requiring no reply. Odin watched after him, then eventually departed for his own chambers. He spent the rest of the evening contemplating what the old man had said.

**III**

Days, much like those that preceded Odin's conversation with Yuan-Chen, passed, and the days became weeks, and the weeks became months. Only a few weeks remained until the illusion of peace and prosperity of the mountain temple, the illusion of which Sakura had spoken, would be shattered at last by the Alliance. It was within these weeks that his platonic relationship with the woman ended.

Sakura had grown considerably darker of mood over the past few weeks, so much, in fact, that the often aloof Nobuyoshi took concerned note of it. He spoke to Odin of the change in her whenever she was not present, and for the first time in the course of their friendship he spoke of Sakura as though she were his wife rather than his sister.

"She does nothing," he said once, halfway through a stuttered explanation of Sakura's strange behavior.

"What do you mean?"

"She does nothing," Nobuyoshi repeated. "She does not speak, she does not read, she does not meditate…she does nothing that she used to. This morning an acquaintance of mine, one of the Buddhist monks, asked if she were ill because she has not accompanied them for their meditation at dawn for several days. She does not eat regularly and when she does it is not much." He looked up at Odin as he had not been able to do in some time, met his eyes clearly. What followed was the first non-platonic reference to Sakura Odin had ever heard him make. "She and I are no longer sleeping together. I do not mean this in the sexual context, or maybe I should say not only in that context. She will no longer sleep in the same bed as I, and whenever she does, she waits until I am asleep and then leaves."

"Do you know where she goes?" Odin interjected.

"No. Perhaps it would not worry me so if I did. She does have to sleep at some point, however, and this is all but killing me to see."

Odin gave him a questioning glance.

"Sakura has always been graceful, proper. She would be too proud to make such a showing of herself as she does now. She is weary always, and when the weariness becomes too much for her, I find her all but unconscious in the most precarious of places, sometimes huddled, in the corner of the one of the rooms of the pagoda like a child. The other night she simply fainted dead away in my arms." He stopped, unable to speak. It was another few minutes before he was able to go on. "She does nothing, Odin, nothing except sit silently apart from those around her, brooding over something she refuses to speak about. I am afraid she will inadvertently kill herself at this rate."

The discussion continued, much in the same manner. Nobuyoshi was nothing less than a pitiful shell of a man when at last he left.

"Indeed there is much concern for her," Yuan-Chen agreed when Odin mentioned the effect Sakura was having on her husband to him. "She has cut herself off from most of us, leaving only myself as one with whom she maintains communication. She refuses even to fight, and some are beginning to suspect that she is indeed the infamous Takeru. You have not left her thoughts completely, however. She has asked me to make the proper apologies to you for avoiding you and keeping secret her motives."

"Which are?"

Yuan-Chen smiled. It was strange to see such an expression upon his serene countenance. "You have fallen under the same spell that Sakura is fighting within herself to preserve. You have truly become a part of this place and all that it offers. The isolation, the escape from all the ever-flowing blood that the world and outer space have become bathed in. You have separated yourself from completely from all that lies beyond this mountain. But nothing has ceased to exist simply because it is rarely given notice here. The Alliance is growing bored with the colonies. They are turning their attentions to Earth, and they will find much with which to amuse themselves here. Revolts have grown while the Alliance was busy in its attempts to gain complete control over the colonies. The people are growing fiercer in their opposition to the organization. Civilians are being arrested by the hundreds beyond these walls. Opposition is not being tolerated in the least. Are you understanding me, Odin? They will set their sights on us soon. With each passing day they draw closer. It is now only a matter of time."

"And Sakura knows of this." It was not a question but a statement.

"Yes. She has been following the movements of the Alliance for some time." He paused as though considering something, then nodded to himself and gestured for Odin to follow him as he began walking down a darkened corridor that was forbidden to all who had not gained specific clearance. It seemed at first that this order was enforced simply by honor, as they had yet to encounter a locked barrier. This was disproved, however, when the first sign of technology within this temple came into view: a small computerized box displaying three rows of coded digits mounted upon the wall.

"This is a precaution," Yuan-Chen explained as he effortlessly punched in the entrance code. "We would prefer to keep it that way."

Something on the other side of the room buzzed and with a quiet hiss the door slid open. Yuan-Chen ushered him into the darkness beyond and shut the door immediately behind them.

No lights were on in the room — it was more of a bunker, really — nor were there any windows to alleviate the darkness. It was utterly empty save for a single long marble table, which was cluttered by a dense forest of computers. There was nothing like this anywhere within the temple, yet somehow he was not surprised at all.

Yuan-Chen directed him toward a chair by the table. He sat willingly, waiting for an explanation he really did not require. He listened carefully as Yuan-Chen delivered it, explaining the purposes of the computers, of all the other technological devices that lay scattered across the table. His only response was an occasional nod.

Certain residents of the temple, namely the other masters and Sakura, were beginning to monitor the movements of the Alliance and the Cosmos Arm, not only through whatever word-of-mouth reached the confines of the mountain but also through attempts of infiltrating the organization's main computers. They tracked the organization as its sights shifted closer and closer to them, and possible defense was being taken into consideration.

All the while Odin listened to this as though it were nothing astonishing; as though somewhere in the depths of his mind, he had known this would happen.

Odin left the room after Yuan-Chen had finished rather than lingering, and rather than returning to his own chambers, he slipped outside the temple, walking toward God-only-knew where under the pale glow of the moon and the jeweled eyes of the stars. Whether it was mere chance that led him on through the forests or something more he did not know, nor did he know whether what happened that evening was ultimately right or wrong. Somehow it seemed to matter little in the scheme of things.

He saw the woman before she saw him, sitting by the edge of the stream at which they had met several times in the past.

"Sakura," he said quietly, and she jumped slightly at the sound of another's voice.

She looked over her shoulder at him. Her face was pale and sickly, her dark eyes encircled by sunken rings of black. "_Hai_?" she said weakly, thinly, as though some immeasurable weight were pressing down upon her, crushing her. He would soon realize how correct that assumption was.

She rose from her slumped crouch and took one faltering step toward him. For the first time he beheld her wearing something other than her semi-ceremonial white robes or her black kimono; she instead was dressed in a pair of tight-fitting black pants and a high-collared crimson shirt that left all but a few inches of her slender arms exposed. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized again how truly beautiful she was, this slender goddess of a woman who contained within herself all the strength of the ancient mountains.

"Have I disturbed you?" he asked, knowing that he had not.

She shook her head. "I knew you would be coming here sooner or later." She looked off to the north and sighed. "I am so tired, Odin," she said. "So tired and yet I cannot find any rest."

"Waiting for the Alliance to discover this place won't help anything, Sakura."

She returned her gaze to him, raised one questioning brow. "Will it not? They come one city nearer each day. Are you aware that there has been speculation within the Alliance that a group of rebels is hiding somewhere in the mountains? It will be because of this that they will take notice of us. Are you aware of this?"

He nodded, and indeed he was aware of it. Yuan-Chen had informed him of it only minutes earlier.

"It was only a matter of time before this happened," she went on, and she sounded as if she were trying to convince herself of it. "I have known this for years, but I did not have to allow admittance of it until now. We have always heard of what the Alliance was doing, of what colony they were facing opposition from among the people, of what kingdom was falling to its oppression, of what city was raided because of rumors that it harbored rebel groups. These things have always been known to us. But somehow it never really mattered so much, because it was not us they were seeking to harm. We were so ignorant, Odin, so arrogant and ignorant." In the darkness he saw her dark eyes redden and her chin quiver. "This is the same ignorance that bred the great wars of the past, the same kind that enabled the Alliance to gain hold of so many nations. We are just as guilty of it." A single tear, glistening in the moonlight, spilled down from her eye. She looked at him fearfully as though realizing what she had done and to cry was a sin. "_Gomen_," she whispered. "_Gomennasai_." She repeated it once, then again, then again until it became a frantic chant, a frenzied prayer, a terrified offering. She started to step forward and her knees buckled underneath her. He ran forward and caught her as she fell and she willingly allowed him to do so, and too late he realized his initially innocent support of her had become an embrace.

Sakura, however, did not seem to notice, or if she did, she did not seem to care.

"They are pathetic fools, all of them," she hissed suddenly, her voice as venomous as a serpent's bite. "They will die in their ignorance." Then, perhaps realizing what she had said, she moaned and fell against him, sobbing. He would never learn fully what it was that wrought the tears from her eyes, if it were indeed more than one thing, which it undoubtedly was. Nor would he ever ask. It was ultimately of little consequence.

Her crying gradually subsided. The tears ceased to pour from her weary eyes. After a moment or so he became aware that she was returning his embrace, her bare arms wrapped tightly about him, her hands clasped behind his back. His first thought was to pull away from her before it was too late, but he did not. Nor did he pull away when she moved her head slightly so that her lips were pressing against his neck.

"Assassin," she said finally. The breath of her words against his skin chilled his spine. "Were you named for the god?"

"Yes," he responded quietly. "Why?"

"According to the myth, the god Odin was in possession of two ravens, one called Thought and the other Memory, and he was incessantly concerned with what they could teach him. What have thought and memory taught you?"

"Too much and yet at the same time, nothing at all," he replied softly.

"Then what have you learned of emotion?" Her voice was now so thin and whispered that she seemed not to be speaking to him but rather to something she saw in a dream.

He could not answer her question for some time. One stoic inquiring of another about emotion was the verbal equivalent of the blind leading the blind. Finally he said, "They are often insignificant."

She sighed. For a single brief moment her arms tightened around him. "_Hai_, insignificant, but when all else has failed, they are our guiding force. When one's last defense has been broken down, he must inevitably rely on the heart. I believe I have come to the conclusion that the only way to live is by one's own emotions. I had given up on such an idealistic belief long years ago, and what has it rendered unto me, save a life that is not life beyond the shelter of the mountains? It is through denial of emotions that such heartless cowards as Dekim Barton come into power. Personal desire and freedom are surrendered under oppression, and then the purgatorial Earth births men such as they. It was through embracing emotion, however, that Heero Yuy rose against the conflict fueled by the Alliance and its hell-spawn military factions, and also through acceptance that the people rose and stood with him. In turn, it was through denial of emotion that you fired the bullet that killed him. Am I so wrong in believing this?" She tilted her head back to look into his eyes.

"No," he said. "It is perhaps the wisest thing you have ever said."

"Hn." She glanced away for a moment, then back at him. "And if you were to live by your own emotions, what would they guide you to do now?"

Had she been leading up to this the entire time? Perhaps not, but still it came as no astonishment to him, as nothing about her did.

To live guided by one's emotions then?

He lowered his head to kiss her. Again her embrace tightened and her dark almond eyes fell closed. It all seemed to happen too slowly, as though they were both awaiting some kind of interruption, then Odin realized that there would be none. They were alone here, as alone as they had been on the night she had unveiled her face and her true name to him. There was no other sound save for the soft wordless babbling of the stream as it careened smoothly down until it vanished from sight in the thick woods; there was no other person to be found on this ethereal night this far from the temple, and only now did it occur to Odin that for perhaps the first time, he had not encountered so much as a single person on the mountainside. It all seemed too terribly calculated to him then, as though his betrayal were about to be made complete or to be discovered, and somehow the former seemed more likely.

_To live guided by one's own emotions. _

His lips brushed chastely against hers. She trembled briefly in his arms, then in an instant her trembling subsided. She pressed herself against him, not as a companion in need of support as she had earlier but rather as something else, perhaps something she had never really even been with her husband, not a friend but a lover who had long been denied what now seemed given to her. He kissed her again in the same manner but with less restraint, and when it seemed to him that too deep a kiss would be disrespectful, unholy even, he merely pressed his lips to her forehead. She relaxed fully against him, so much that he was again holding her on her feet, but now it was only his support that kept her standing; so much that if he were to loosen his hold on her, she would surely fall; so much that if he were to lower her to the ground as though it were their own shared bed—

Was this what she wanted, that he take her there on the forest floor? He could not. Already he had tasted too much of her, and the temptation had waxed too great, but if they were to commit this act together with such complete abandon—

It would either matter or it would not.

But—

"We cannot do this," he told her, and as if to contradict himself — damn his weakness! — he kissed her again.

"I know," she whispered in return, "but can this not last a while longer?"

He nodded and held her against him. She laid her head again on his shoulder. He wondered silently if they were going to spend the remainder of the night like this.

And they did, though with none of the former temptation that had existed so briefly between them. At some point she mumbled wearily in Japanese that she needed to sit down and he released her, only to have her pull him down with her. She slept at last, perhaps for the first time in days, in his arms, lulled to sleep finally by the hypnotic song of the moonlit stream, and perhaps by the relief of her surrender, however short-lived and unrewarded it may have been.

That night should have been some kind of pinnacle in their relationship, but strangely it was not. What happened simply happened, there was no denying or changing of it, and neither did it change either of their lives, though in the days that followed Sakura's disposition showed enough improvement to dissuade some of the concern that followed her. They never spoke of what had happened between them again.

In a way, it was a pinnacle of a different sort, as Odin would realize in the months that were to come. On some level that evening and all occurred therein was their farewell to each other.

**IV**

The life of the temple was a melange of routines, as ordered as that of monks living in cloister, but there was one morning in which all routine halted, a morning in which the inhabitants of the mountain temple were awakened by the sounds of explosions in the valley below. Sakura's fears that the Alliance would attack the temple in specific were not fully justified as the attack did not move to the mountain, but the devastation it wrought was evident within the confines of the temple.

Sakura disappeared the morning following the attack and did not return for three days. Those days, she later told him, she had spent below the mountain, leaving it for the first time in her life, to wander emptily through the destruction the Alliance had left in its wake.

Protests in the valley had begun immediately following the assault, a slap in the face of the Alliance, a proclamation by the survivors that they would not merely lie down before the organization and wait to die. Sakura had found herself amid the crowd at one of these protests, and it was this experience that had initiated her metamorphous from being a dutiful eternal scholar into the leader of a great rebel force.

She continued her residency at the temple as she would for her entire career as an enemy of the Alliance, but frequently she left to join these protests, and at some point in time she began speaking at them.

These things were both of high and little relevance. This was what the public knew about her; this was _what_ she was. What Odin Lowe would come to remember years later was instead _who _she was, the woman she was beyond the public figure.

She drew crowds as few others in these protests could do, appealing to all who witnessed her in a different way, inspiring the very same emotions in these people as Heero Yuy had before her. She was joined by her husband and several others from the temple, yet she remained the focal point of it all, the lily amongst the trampled grasses.

Perhaps this, not her life in the temple, had been her true calling.

In the years she spent as the leader of these protests, she drew in people from all across the globe and from the colonies. She, along with many of her followers, were arrested by local officials on an almost regular basis, held for twenty-four hours, and then released, yet none of this deterred her.

It was in the height of her career as a rebel against the Alliance that Sakura began to weaken. The protests continued and the intensity of the governmental opposition grew at such a rate that all knew it would not be much longer until the Alliance took greater action against them. People from every country and every colony continued to flock to her, and for them she continued to wear the mask of undeterred strength, to laugh in the face of the Alliance as though assured of her own immortality. Another inconsequential arrest occurred, another, and still the officials were forced to release her. Only those close to her were able to see the profound changes in her.

She tired easily and slept often, and her sleep was more nights than not troubled. She ceased fighting entirely and disappeared from her serene life within the temple. Within a month of this she had become as quiet and withdrawn as she had been when first she had begun to realize the threat of the Alliance to their ageless mountain sanctuary.

Meditation was the only way he could attempt to forget what was happening to her. When the temple and its candles offered no solace he left it for the solitude of the forests beyond its walls; once he had even considered leaving altogether. It was on an evening near the spot where he usually meditated that he found her waiting for him.

"There is something I need to tell you," she said immediately when he saw her. "Nobuyoshi does not even know yet. I hope you will understand."

He watched inquisitively as she approached him, half-astounded to see her when they had barely spoken since the beginning of her chronic illness.

She did not speak again for several minutes. Her eyes never left his, as though she were waiting to test his reaction to whatever matter had led her to break her self-imposed isolation to find him.

"I am pregnant, Odin," she said finally. Her eyes closed in a silent expression of contemplation. "I am going to have Nobuyoshi's child."

He nodded, nothing more, but nothing less than this small gesture of understanding. Somehow hearing these words that were supposedly never to issue from her lips did not surprise him. The strange feeling that caused his pulse to quicken and his entire body to feel weighed down by some outer force was instead a cessation of his espoused stoicism. She remained rigid as she watched him, a living statue sculpted out of pliant flesh, yet in another moment she had moved so close to him that their lips were only an inch from touching.

"I do not know how to be a mother," she said. "I am a scholar and a fighter, I have been these things all my life. I am considered a wife by Nobuyoshi. I have within this time become an opponent of tyrannical force desiring both the blood of the Earth and of the colonies. But I am not a mother. I cannot be."

He forced a slight smile. "I have yet to find something you cannot do."

She looked at him, offered a tight smile and made an attempt to nod. "Thank you." She laid her head on his shoulder and sighed. After a moment he embraced her, held her closer to him, and whatever pain he felt and denied was made obsolete.

**V**

The child was born healthy and without incident, despite its mother's fears of possible complications due to her previous inability to conceive, a son whom Sakura chose to call Takeru. Nobuyoshi had waited through the labor with all the exuberance of a pre-adolescent child about to receive a new toy, pacing the corridors of the entire temple with a nervous smile upon his face in contrast to the solemnity surrounding him. Odin, as one of the temple masters, sat outside of the room, and on the other side of the door, to his knowledge, Sakura made not a sound, determined to appear a stoic pillar of strength even through the pain that had wracked her body since dawn that morning.

Three women attended her throughout the labor. The only man allowed in the room, at Sakura's request, was Yuan-Chen.

The doors were not opened again until nightfall, when one of the midwives announced that a boy had been born and called the group of the temple's highest scholars into the room while simultaneously sending one of them to find Nobuyoshi.

Sakura glanced up only once as they filed into the room, searching him out in the small crowd and smiling when she saw him. A blanket was pulled up to her shoulders as though the heated pain of bearing the child had taken all the warmth from her body. She held in her slender arms the infant boy, freshly cleaned and wrapped in a linen sheet. The child was nothing less than beautiful.

Nobuyoshi burst into the room as though he had been alerted to a fire. He tried to speak and could only stutter, and whenever stuttering failed him, he ran to his wife and embraced her, gesturing excitedly at his son.

Not the vaguest trace of a smile was displayed upon Odin's face as he watched this.

_Another man's wife. Why had he never until this moment thought of her as such?_

He was called to her bedside by Yuan-Chen after Nobuyoshi had left to further the news of his son's birth and the others had, having said their piece over the child, departed. He was bold enough to briefly kiss her forehead as he studied the boy, with barely a glance to Yuan-Chen. Did he know of how deeply their feelings toward each other were now? Of course he did. There was no need to question that. He knew without being told, without having to observe, and whether he approved or not was irrelevant even to himself.

The boy opened his eyes as his mother stroked his plump face, and Odin was surprised to see that they were blue.

"Is he all right?" he asked before he could stop himself. Sakura seemed oblivious to the question.

Yuan-Chen gave slight nod. "He is in perfect condition. He will be as strong as his mother as time progresses. His eyes convey that."

Sakura gave a gentle kiss to the infant's cheek.

Yuan-Chen's eyes fell from Odin's to hers. "Are you now satisfied?"

From the corner of his eye Odin saw her cast a glance at him.

"_Hai_," she replied finally, clutching the child against her. "Yes. I am."

Again Yuan-Chen nodded and returned to his own silent contemplation, strangely seeming as though he knew something they did not.

**VI**

The boy grew and remained as healthy as it had been born; and in time he became something to Sakura that nothing else could, not her husband, not the vast crowds of people who all but worshiped her, not even Odin. The temple, even, to which she had willingly given her life and her soul, could not provide her with what the child did.

"The boy is hers," Yuan-Chen inexplicably said to him once, while from afar Odin watched the two of them, the infant boy and his mother. "He is the only thing that has ever truly belonged to her."

"And what is he to her husband, then?"

"Nobuyoshi is still but a child himself, hardly more than an older sibling to him. It is she who is both mother and father to them both."

And this was proven true as time went on, but to Sakura it seemed not to matter. Odin realized during this time that Takeru was the only thing that had ever made her truly happy.

Her leadership of the protests did not end after the child was born; when her health was returned fully, she again began leaving the mountain for her devotees, and the boy accompanied her.

And suddenly there seemed a certain rightness to it all, as though some great circle had at long last closed upon itself. The child was accepted by his mother's followers, and he became almost as much of a symbol as she before him. Nobuyoshi returned to his former ignorantly happy state, content in being the husband of the very embodiment of a muse of peace. Sakura herself resumed the constant duties of all that she was, of a mother, a scholar, of the proclaimed next Heero Yuy. To Odin, of a goddess.

Suddenly everything returned to what it once had been.

"Are you at last fulfilled, Sakura?" he asked her once after they had privately, without reason or motive, engaged in another fight, which she, as always, won.

Her head, resting on his shoulder, moved so that every word she spoke was punctuated by a soft, chaste kiss. "No. Satisfied, yes, but not fulfilled. I will never be fulfilled." With that she delivered a quick, unexpected kiss to his lips and rose, leaving him alone to ponder what she had said.

Further away from the seclusion of the mountain, the Cosmos Arm was beginning to truly turn its attentions to the rebel known as Hanasaki Sakura. Their officers began appearing alongside the locals at the protests, and more and more of her followers were arrested, some later released and some not. Sakura herself was arrested on several occasions and each time released within a week. Once she had, while holding the young Takeru, spit in the face of one of the Arm's officers and had been apprehended immediately; her son had endured an arrest by the time he was three years of age.

In the final year of her life she went through another ritual arrest at the closing of a demonstration and did not reappear for another two weeks. She returned to the temple immediately following her release and endured a warm, proud greeting from all there, acting as she needed to, and Odin seemed the only one who took note of the haunted expression that plagued her serene eyes.

She met him later outside the temple, at the place they usually inhabited by the stream. She said nothing for several minutes, but when Odin sat beside her she placed her hand over his and asked him quietly to wait. Patiently, he did.

"He is on Earth now," she said finally.

"Who?"

"Dekim Barton. I met him."

He raised a stunned eyebrow.

"He presided over each of my interrogations."

"Did he do anything else?"

"He had me blindfolded and ordered me to fight him. He said that he had heard I was strong enough to do it. His right arm is now broken. He is nothing more than a fucking coward."

Odin blinked. In all their time together, after each of her arrests, he had never seen her lose her almost Zen composure enough to swear.

She looked at him and after a moment she gave a soft laugh.

He kissed her then. She sighed and enfolded her slender arms about him. It had been several weeks since something like this had happened between them and yet they gave no resistance to it, as though indeed it were meant to happen. Perhaps it truly was.

She moved and lay back against the cool ground, holding him tightly over him. She gave a low, murmured "_Hai_" and he kissed her more deeply, pushing away all insistent thoughts of what they were doing, she a married woman and he a master of the temple, forgetting them all, both of them forgetting themselves in this act—

"_Tenshi_!"

She was out from underneath him in less than a moment, brushing the light dusting of dirt from her clothes and jumping to her feet as Takeru, face dirtied from playing outside with one of the other children, ran into the small clearing. "_Tenshi_," he said again, holding his arms up to beckon his mother to lift him. Rare was the occasion in which he called Sakura his mother, preferring instead, inexplicably, to call her 'angel,'

Sakura lifted him up into her arms, laughing as he smeared the dirt that marred his face upon her own.

"I want to go down," he said, meaning that he wanted to go into the city below the mountain.

"We will go in the morning tomorrow," she said, kissing his forehead.

"But I want to go _NOW_!"

"Tomorrow."

Takeru glanced back at Odin. "He can go with us."

"He can go tomorrow."

Their eyes met as the boy continued to plead and Sakura gave a slight nod, an invitation, a request that he join her as she continued to proclaim in the face of the Alliance that she was not afraid of them. The following day he accepted. That day began the final month of Sakura's life.

**VII**

The sun set in a glorious fire play of crimson and blue, of violet and orange, painting the sky in such a way that not even the most skillful artist could render. The light and that cast by the flames of the nearby candles played across her face so beautifully that for a while at least, he was no longer able to see the haunted expression of her eyes.

He had not been aware of it when she had entered his chambers. He had come out of a rather long state of meditation to find her sitting before him, by the window where the colors of the descending sun reflected on her tranquil face.

That evening would be their last alone together.

"Nobuyoshi has taken Takeru down into the city," she said finally, and though they had been sitting there together for over an hour, these were the first words spoken between them.

"When will they be returning?" This was not an innuendo, nor was it taken as one. What happened between them that evening was, though inevitable, completely unintended.

"Not until tomorrow morning."

"Why did you not accompany them?"

"I was not asked to," she said, "and I have much left to do here."

"Does it not matter to you, Sakura, that the Alliance has targeted you? Do you not care at all?" Despite the urgency of his words, he felt a smile light upon his face, one that conveyed the endearment he felt only for her.

"_Hai_, it does matter, but not so much as you would like. I am cautious even more so now, but I will not go into hiding, not even for you, Odin." She favored him with a smile of her own. So beautiful, her divine face, her ethereal eyes that glistened like two pools of oil in the fading light. So beautiful, her full lips that he had tasted so many times now yet still they remained innocent to each other, so beautiful her slender throat where it was covered by the neck of her black shirt, the same shirt — the same outfit — she had worn when they had first met, he as a student and she as an experienced maven in the guise of a boy. So very beautiful.

She moved closer to him, calmly and without explanation, and stared inquisitively into his eyes. "Why do you look at me so?"

"What do you mean?"

Her tight smile broadened. "You look at me as though I am something you desire above all other things but are afraid to convey it. The legendary Odin gave one of his eyes to attain wisdom. You look at me as though you would give your soul to me."

"Perhaps I would."

She moved closer to him still. Was she meaning to tempt him so, to make him desire an end to their resistance?

"And perhaps I would give mine to attain you," she said, and he realized that her lips had become perilously close and that the breath of her words was a gentle breeze against the side of his face. To give in once more, would it be that much more of a sin?

His hand, as though sharing this thought, moved up to curl around the back of her head, guiding her lips closer to his. "No. Yours was not meant to belong to anyone."

She sighed and there ended the struggle to fight what seemed inevitable between them. Their lips touched and hers parted at his guidance, so deep, so desperate a kiss was truly rare with them, and perhaps it was in that moment that they both realized what was about to happen.

A deepening kiss. The first slight touch of her tongue. The taste of her, the very essence of her inner tranquility. The kiss of a goddess.

Without being sufficiently aware of his actions to cease them, he pulled her up off the floor and lifted her, and she yielded to him without protest. There was no longer any well-meaning husband or curious child to interrupt their act. He carried her, as her lips pulled gently — almost playfully — at his neck, to the bed on the other side of the room. It was not large or luxurious, this bed, nothing worthy of her, she deserved royal suites and feather pillows and white silken sheets, not this modest one, but it would accommodate their intentions.

He lowered her onto the bed and she pulled him down with her, pausing not for hesitant regret or moral indecision. Damn their regret and cast their morals into Hell. They were no longer needed, not this time, not until the morning stole in with its shadow-banishing light and brought with it a husband and a child and the duties of one who bore the title of a master of the arts practiced within the temple. Let regret and morals burn in the great fires of hell as the proprietors of these wars were certain to do. Perhaps salvation truly was found not in denial but in submission.

"I will not deny you," she whispered breathlessly, as though he had spoken this last thought. Her hands sought his blindly underneath the linen sheets. "Do not allow me to deny you this time." She silenced him before he could respond with another kiss. He sampled her lips a moment longer then his kiss trailed down onto her neck as his fingers, still curled around her slender hand, worked at the button of her high collar.

After some immeasurable time she, suddenly and without explanation, pulled out from underneath him. Looking at her, watching her calm almond eyes, he realized that in the minutes since their conversation had been ended by a kiss, the sun had faded below the horizon of the mountain, and the light that reflected in the Asian darkness of her eyes was merely that of the candles.

"What is it?" he asked, drawing as far away from her as she had from him.

She remained silent for several moments, then she edged closer again and said, without meeting his eyes, "With Nobuyoshi, in what we are doing, I feel nothing." He had not realized she was trembling until he heard her faltering English. "I have never felt anything. Not pain and not joy. Nothing." She paused and then said quietly, "I want to feel something with you."

"_Hai_, Sakura."

Again, down onto the bed, into the sheets that muted the candlelight upon her flesh. Another kiss, another embrace. A feeling of some certain rightness, a sense that even if it were not necessarily right, it was inevitable that this should at last happen.

She moaned softly as he moved to undo the buttons of her black shirt, exposing her flesh inch by ethereal inch and watching the firelight play across her bared shoulders as though through some ancient ritual he would be able to discern his future from the dancing shadows.

He removed the shirt to reveal underneath the tight corset she wore to bind down her breasts when she fought, to give herself the form and figure of younger boy. Her eyes met his with an expression of something like uncertainty and something like fear, and yet at the same time there was a certain degree of desire present, and he knew in that instant she had never known this with her husband.

She sat up and turned so that her back faced him, modestly clasping her hands over her restrained, covered breasts and sighing shakily when his fingertips brushed against her back as he untied the corset's laces. Her shoulders shook violently as each knotted tie was undone and once he almost stopped, then after a small nod from her he proceeded, until at last the final tie had been loosened and the corset was cast onto the floor.

Her trembling intensified as the rest of her body was bared to him. The candlelight caressed her exposed back as though lightly kissing her. He soon found himself doing the same.

She calmed under his touch and turned back to face him, though her hands still covered what her clothes no longer did.

"There can only be this one night," she said quietly. "Only this one night…with us…like this…only this one night."

"I know."

She nodded and sighed. This sigh seemed, ultimately, to be the end of her resistance.

She lay down upon the bed, guiding him down with her.

**VIII**

He had expected her to be gone when he awoke that morning, yet when he opened his eyes he found her sleeping at his side, her exposed back facing him, breathing slowly and appearing as she slept as nothing more than an innocent child. She awoke shortly after he did, and without saying a word she rolled over and lay her head on his chest.

The previous night was indeed the only one they would ever have together, as Sakura was killed personally by Dekim Barton two days later.

**IX**

Hanasaki Nobuyoshi died the day after his friend's betrayal with his wife. During a protest, one of the most intense of Sakura's career as a political adversary, an Alliance soldier, either by order or his own desire to end what was happening, pulled a gun and fired a single bullet into Nobuyoshi's brain.

His body was carried back to the temple by Odin and Yuan-Chen, and pronounced dead there immediately. Sakura watched all this with a false calmness, with emotionless eyes brimming with tears, and as his body was carried away to be cremated, she retreated to the chambers she had shared with him as Yuan-Chen saw to Takeru.

She called Odin into her rooms after the sun had set that evening, and although she now sat calmly before a table, her face dry and as serene as that of a Buddhist monk, he could see clearly that she had spent those isolated hours crying. "Nobuyoshi was both a child and a husband to me," she said monotonously. "My life is half-ended without him."

Nothing more was said between them that night. He left her when at last her body slumped forward in the chair and her head rested in slumber against it.

If he had stayed that night, he would often wonder years later, when she was dead and he was still wretchedly living, would anything have been different? Would Sakura have been persuaded to stay in the temple the next day instead of going down into the valley where she would face her death? Perhaps, perhaps not.

He later learned that Sakura had awakened sometime that night and had gone, panicked and half out of her mind, searching for him and unable to find him, for he had left the temple shortly after leaving her.

_Damn him for leaving her like that, damn him for making her go through that. Damn him for failing to save her. _

When he returned the following morning, he was told that she had gone into the city where the protestors awaited her, taking Takeru with her. He considered going after her, then finally decided not to.

Early in the afternoon, word reached the temple that the Alliance had attacked the city, in hopes of at long last eliminating the rebels and their leader.

His flight from the temple was, as he feared, not quick enough. The site of the protest demonstration was in chaos when he reached it, a very literal hell on earth that required, in his mind, no further description. The Armament had done its work; the soldiers that had been called to prepare for this attack only the night before would be rewarded well for their efficiency. A barren wasteland lay before him, with flames shooting upward from the deeply etches holes that had been cut into the ground by God-only-knew how many explosives. A barren wasteland littered with the felled bodies of the dead and the dying, rivers of blood that was still warm from former vitality.

He had known on every level as his widened eyes had surveyed the burning ruins that he had failed her.

There were many who still, by some miracle, stood upon their feet, but whether or not they saw him, this lone man dressed in black who pushed his way through them as though all the hosts of Hell were behind him, could not be said. They stumbled about like the incarcerated mindless, or perhaps bleeding wraiths from a distant nightmare, unaware of where they were or what they were doing; dull wanderers at the gates of Hades itself. One dark-haired woman cried quietly to herself as she carried her child. Upon a momentary closer inspection, he realized that the child she held in her battered arms was dead.

He searched each of their faces and could not find one belonging to her.

Had he been able to fully utilize his mind as he stumbled through the crying-bleeding-dazed masses, he would have undoubtedly realized the possibility that she had been taken by the Arm rather than assassinated. She was of greater concern to the Arm than these nameless rebels; indeed, she was considered as the moment to be one of the greatest threats to the Arm and the Alliance as a whole, such a threat that it would have been simply a waste of the organization's efforts to merely kill her. Indeed, had he been in full possession of his senses he would have thought of this, and perhaps with this thought as the most probable event in his mind, he might have turned back.

However, had he turned back at that precise moment, he would undoubtedly have never seen her body lying upon the ground, internally drowning in its own blood but living still.

He found her body alone, several yards away from any other, as though she had been forced away from them all so that her destruction might be carried out more personally. A pool of her own blood stained the ground around her, stained every inch of her skin that could be seen and tightened her black clothes about her, and he saw immediately the cause of it, the five seeping gunshot wounds that perforated her body from chest to abdomen.

He fell beside her, fearing she was already dead.

Her eyes opened and she looked blindly up at him. After several moments there flickered a dull light of recognition and she whispered through bleeding lips his name.

He stumbled over the words to tell her to conserve her strength, to which she laughed and gave a quiet 'no.'

"It is ironic, is it…not…that…that Dekim Barton should…that he should…be the one to…to give me what I want?"

A dawning realizing, an outraged epiphany. Dekim had done this to her, the coward, the fucking coward, the fucking bastard.

He surveyed the destruction around them, saw no one watching. Dekim had left her. He had exacted his vengeance upon her and left her here to die, too weak to watch what he had done … he found himself remembering their first conversation, of her saying with perfect conviction that she hoped, if she were to die in the same fashion as Heero Yuy, her assassin would have the strength to stand over her and watch her die, and he knew that he could not leave her to seek help. Perhaps it was his punishment for what he had done to Yuy, that he should be the one to watch her.

She sighed shakily and her eyes fell closed.

"Sakura?"

Her eyes fluttered open, her lips parted in a trembling exhalation. "It does not…I cannot feel it anymore." Her hand went limp in his. "I do not have to be this anymore, do I?"

He bent and kissed her bloodstained forehead. "I don't understand, Sakura."

She seemed not to hear him. Her weak futile hand grasped at the air once more, brushing against the side of his face. "Please…Takeru…find him…" Her voice trailed off into an almost palpable silence. The fingers of her hand slid across his face once more, then her hand fell away in time with her life.

And thus passed this woman from the world, without a dramatic speech or parting words of love or wisdom but rather with a mindless fragmented rambling.

Something warm rolled down his face.

He whispered her name, kissed the spot between her sightless eyes as he closed them.

For a while he could only hold her, the empty, bloody shell of the only one he had ever truly in his stoicism loved, too much in a state of shock to realize that he had just lost her.

A hand, thin and withered with age, lighted upon his shoulder.

"Take the boy," Yuan-Chen said behind him, his serene voice too grave, too solemn. Odin turned and saw that the elder man's eyes were glistening, and at his side he held Sakura's pale, catatonically shocked son. "I will see to the body."

He nodded and shakily rose to his feet, relinquishing her corpse only at Yuan-Chen's request.

Yuan-Chen knelt by her and motioned for Odin to leave him.

"The Arm–"

"Has done its work," Yuan-Chen said, closing his ancient eyes. "Take the boy. The Alliance is searching for you. They have discovered that you were seen with her. Take the boy and leave."

Takeru looked up at him, his strange blue eyes vague and emotionless. That look would remain in them always. "_Tenshi_," he said quietly, one large tear spilling down his cheek. "She…"

He fell silent then, and Odin took the child into his arms.

Thus had begun the three years they had spent together, a pathetic war-scarred semblance of a father and son. The boy had never cried again after that day, had in fact spent those three years held between true catatonia and a stoic existence.

Odin had tried to do for him all that Sakura would have wanted, given the circumstances. The Arm, he knew, continued the search for them for two of those three years before giving up, leaving them finally for dead.

The matter of the elimination of the Cosmos Arm had long since become irrelevant to him. His survival, as well as that of Septum and Dekim Barton was inexplicable, and no amount of remembrance could change any of that, just as no amount of remembrance would resurrect Hanasaki Sakura from the grave.

Takeru's actions during the Arm's downfall had both impressed and strangely saddened him.

He lit another cigarette, unaware of how many he had already smoked. It was a habit he had picked up somewhere in the vast amount of time between his supposed death in AC 188 and the time in which he had decided that his death truly was overdue.

Up until that point he had lived much as he had after the assassination of Heero Yuy, wandering and belonging to nothing and desiring nothing. At some unconscious time he realized that he did, however, desire to die.

By this time Yuan-Chen had resurfaced in Asia, not in the temple in the mountains of Japan but rather in his native Manchuria, where the rest of his family had remained after his departure for the temple, God-only-knew how many years before. Odin had gone to him then, to the house of his brother's many children, and it had seemed almost as though Yuan-Chen had been expecting him.

"I had heard of your death on the colony," he said hours later, after his nephews had gone respectively off in pursuit of their own endeavors before their expected return at dawn. He was exactly the same as he had been all those years ago in the temple, serene, ancient, unshakable. Perhaps he had seemed even more so when mirrored against Odin's own strange instability.

"What should have been my death," he said. To anyone else his voice would have maintained its signature calmness; to Yuan-Chen, however, it had seemed bitter.

"Your mission was successful," Yuan-Chen went on.

"The ones who were supposed to die did not."

Yuan-Chen sat back in his chair. "Then perhaps you have done your penance for the death of Heero Yuy."

"Dekim Barton's survival does not make up for Yuy's death."

"You do not know such for certain until he has performed a role in future events. We do not know what he may yet cause."

The conversation had continued in this way for a while. It was interrupted only once, when a boy, around the age of Yuan-Chen's nephews but obviously not one of them, stumbled sleepily into the room and asked Yuan-Chen if he had slept through dinner as though he still were not truly awake.

"Go back to bed, Rhyn," Yuan-Chen said, waving the boy off, and the British boy went without argument. After Yuan-Chen explained to Odin whom the boy was, he continued, "You have developed a bitterness for life, Odin. Your soul has become much like Sakura's."

"She was not so bitter." It was the first time he had spoken of her since her death.

"She did not let you see it. Sakura went through much pain in her life, pain that she spoke of to none. Her pain is ended, Odin. You should allow your own to do the same."

He left Yuan-Chen a few days later. By this time a great war had begun in space, and the destruction of the Earth was threatened by a man calling himself Milliardo Peacecraft. Odin had needed to see the man only once to know that he truly was the lost Prince of the Sanq Kingdom.

On the day of the assassination of the military leader Treize Kushrenada, Odin again traveled to space, in hopes of dying there. His death had been prevented by a globally-broadcast view of the great battle that was then ensuing, a fierce war between only two Gundams, one of them piloted by Milliardo Peacecraft. A brief image was shown of the other pilot, and though Odin had not seen the boy in years, he recognized him immediately as Takeru, Sakura's lost, scarred, stoic son.

His thoughts of romancing death, of pursuing that final redemption, had been put on hold as he watched, and when later the craft Yuan-Chen had arranged for him to take into space had gone into the vicinity of the wreckage of the crimson Gundam and its barely-living pilot, it had seemed to him that he was not yet entirely obsolete.

And thus Marquise had stolen his redemption, as Takeru had interrupted it before.

He had become aware of a possible purpose for Marquise only a month later, when it became known to him and certain others that Kushrenada had survived and what he was already even then planning.

He wondered now if it truly was her memory that had led him to start the counteroffensive. The question was irrelevant; of course he had done it in her memory. Almost everything he did was, in some inexplicable way that he no longer desired to understand, for her.

He had a feeling that she would have done the same thing in his position.

_My dear Sakura, your pain truly has ended._

And so had his own, though he could not now remember when or how this had happened, just as he could barely remember his reaction when he had, days after her death, allowed it to strike him that Hanasaki Sakura truly was dead.

He wondered if Takeru would ever allow his own to end.

He remained on the platform until the night began to wane, lost in his own thoughts, brooding as he had often been accused of doing, absently enjoying the chill as it gradually seeped into him. When the sky in the east at last yielded to the bright orange of dawn, his dark figure stole away into the forest whence it had come, and if there had been anyone else there to see, he would have appeared nothing more than a shadow falling away at the coming of the light.

**Author's Notes: **Where to start . . . I really don't like this chapter. Well, I don't necessarily _dislike_ it, but I do hate reading it ... it's so damnably _long!_ Originally this chapter was not going to be an actual part of Ballad, but rather was intended as a character study for Odin Lowe to be read by only a few people. However, it seemed to suit the story, and as Odin began to emerge as such a major character, it became quite apparent that some back story for him was needed. For those of you who have not read the Episode Zero manga but are sticking with this story for whatever ungodly reason suits you (cheers, there, by the way), almost everything in this chapter is original. All that is ever revealed in the manga about Odin is that he killed the original Heero Yuy, he acted as guardian for the soon-to-be Gundam pilot Heero Yuy, and he died leading an assault on the Cosmos Arm (which then included Dekim Barton, General Septum, and I think I saw Quinze somewhere in there as well, but it's been so long since I read it that I don't really remember). Everything else I just made up. It was the best logical idea that I had for his character.

In regard to the temple, I meant for it almost to be a contradiction to itself. It is a mixture of the religious shrines of Japan and a sense of cultural/spiritual unity that I think would have to exist amongst some of the isolationist groups of the ultramodern AC era. The ceremonies therein are also of that odd mixture. Odin's period of training, as well as that of many of the students, takes relatively short time due to the era as well, as I think that by that time, what once required decades would have to be done in much shorter time to appeal to more people. Despite having the opportunity to do so in this chapter, I chose to emphasize Odin's relationship with Sakura rather than his embrace of Taoism there, and sometimes I wish I had done the opposite, but then again, I am rather attached to Sakura's character.

Regarding how Sakura actually knew Odin's identity in their first conversation, all I can say is that there was once going to be some kind of subplot that would have made her enigmatic response (that she recognized his movement) make more sense, but I completely abandoned that idea when I developed a better sense of her character, and just decided to leave that response there without further explanation. She's quite like Yuan-Chen when it comes to vague responses anyway.

At certain points in this chapter, the usual Japanese suffixes are dropped from the names. This, as well as little Takeru's use of the word 'tenshi,' is mostly just to reflect fictional changes that have occurred in their language system by this era.

Finally, I think that sex scene was the shortest and most undetailed sex scene I have ever written. I almost feel like writing a vignette with Odin and Sakura that doesn't skip on the details, but that probably couldn't be posted on this website.


	18. Chapter Seventeen

_Chapter Seventeen_

**I**

"Good evening, Mr. Hanasaki," the old man said as the boy started outside the base. Heero grunted a response and kept going, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat as he walked toward the edge of the short platform that separated the primary building of this branch of the counteroffensive from the shore. He did not flinch when the door fell shut behind him, a solid _thunk_ and a sharp metallic clicking as it automatically locked, but for a moment he did close his eyes, pausing in the long journey that still lay ahead of him.

Heero shook his head, clearing such unwanted thoughts, and walked on. He often went to the edge of the pier after he decided to call it a night — or day, his hours were quite flexible and he could come in or leave at whatever time he chose — and though he did not find any true enjoyment in this, he did eventually find something there, something that seemed to be becoming more and more vital to him with every day that passed.

The pier, as it had been on every other night Heero had thought to stop there, was empty, kept company only by the calm ocean. He could not see the edge of it in the unbroken darkness and while the water wasn't exactly deep there, it was well over Heero's head and if he were to take one too many steps there was a good chance that, even despite his aquatic skills, he would wind up dead before the night was through. He had seen such a thing happen to even the best of swimmers: unable to touch the ground, stunned and breathless from the abrupt plunge into the icy ocean, with the waves moving in from all directions one could all too easily become so severely disoriented that he simply paddled further away from land and soon became caught in the current caused by the nocturnal tides.

However, circumstances would have to be dire indeed for Heero to suffer such a fate, even if he still held that fervent desire to die. He subconsciously knew the exact number of steps it took him to walk from the beginning of the pier to its end. He had often crouched down in the darkness, expecting to take the plunge into the water but that had somehow never happened, and tonight was no exception.

The thing he found when he came here was the closest thing to solace he would ever be able to attain, a solace that was neither happiness nor sadness but some equilibrium between the two. The only time in his life that he had ever been able to truly rid his mind of all thoughts, to empty it out like so many grains of sand into the ocean below, had been when he had gotten the inexplicable idea that instead of going directly home one night, he would go out to the pier, and ever since he had become all but physically addicted to the mental numbness that came over him there.

He was not able to find that solace tonight, though. Too much had happened recently and too much had yet to be done for him to clear his mind of it all, regardless of how much he wanted to do it. He struggled against all the persistent thoughts that threatened to interrupt his reverie devoid of awareness for almost half an hour before he decided that such a battle was futile and simply gave in.

However, even after surrender, he still refused to think about the counteroffensive and was able to put it, for the time being at least, at the back of his mind.

He managed to instead think about something that had not entered his mind in months. The others. All united in battle, all scattered to the winds after there were no more battles left to fight, like old knighted warriors who suddenly found themselves without a sword or an adversary upon whom to use it.

Heero did not consider the others his friends, never had. They had had to rely on each other's help in desperate times but this was hardly a sign of true camaraderie. They had all parted ways soon after L3X18999's short-lived attempt to gain control over the Earth, and since, Heero had not heard from any of them, save for one quick phone call from Duo Maxwell while he had still been residing in the Sanq Kingdom and the braided pilot had still been able to attain his phone number with relative ease.

Duo was one of the two other pilots of whose whereabouts and exploits Heero knew, the second being Quatre. Duo and the former OZ soldier Hilde Schbeiker had gone to Duo's home colony after the war that was in all rights supposed to be the final one and the two of them worked together for the Sweepers organization, and Heero supposed that his former fellow pilot enjoyed this kind of life. After all, now he was being paid to find junk and play with it, and life with Hilde was probably another perk of his life after the war; it was no secret that the two of them had — in the very least — developed some kind of feelings toward each other in the time they had spent together before the commencement of the Eve Wars. The last time Heero had listened to Duo babble over the phone — for that was the only thing their conversations could truly be referred to as, for Heero rarely spoke in them, leaving the talking to the ever-obliging Duo — the Sweepers believed they might have found a sheet of drastically damaged yet still usable gundanium alloy in a mass of wreckage several kilometers from the colonies. Heero had uttered some sound of interest at this and had he given it any more thought than he had he might have realized that he had known even then what this solitary scrap of gundanium meant, but Duo knew nothing for sure, and if the metal had proven to be the same one used in the construction of the Gundams, the Sweepers had never released a statement about it. That one little piece of gundanium disappeared from both the face of the Earth and the colonies. Heero, more knowledgeable now than he had been then, supposed that suited Zechs just fine.

The second pilot whose current state of existence Heero was sure of was Quatre Raberba Winner. But of course, Quatre's whereabouts were known to everyone.

There was always recompense for evil, Heero had been taught by a person he was beginning to believe couldn't die, and at the same time there is always something bad laying in wait for the good. There is recompense, and somehow after what had happened, he was brought back to a much more stable condition, but the constant of that condition that made it stable was that he was comatose, a human vegetable, and the chances that he would ever recover were very slim.

Trowa Barton had valued anonymity as a Gundam pilot and seemed to value it even more now. If there were any people either on Earth or the colonies who really knew him aside from those he worked with in the circus, it would seem to them that he had simply vanished. He had remained with his sister, Catherine, in the circus long enough to finish the South European tour, then had returned to the name given to him at birth, Triton Bloom, and had fled in the cover of darkness to one of the colonies. Heero, naturally suspicious as any true soldier should be, had wondered about this sudden departure, perhaps because of all pilots he had fought with, Trowa was the only one to whom he had ever actually talked, but Trowa's affairs were his own and as long as he remained out of Heero's way, that was fine.

He had not been surprised in the least when he learned that Trowa begun to have contact with the current President of the Prevention Organization.

Heero knew even less about the final Gundam pilot, Chang Wufei. He had heard that Wufei had been personally invited by the former Major Sally Po to join the Prevention Organization and that he had accepted. That was the last time he had heard Wufei's name mentioned.

There was no love lost between any of them, but nor was there any bad blood.

They were simply finished now.

They were not needed.

_Heero _was not needed.

And so he had believed until he discovered that Odin Lowe was still alive.

The Earth had returned, it had seemed then, to peace, and the colonies were trying to gain their much-desired self-government. The great military leaders who had orchestrated the wars of the past had been annihilated, ending with the dramatic death of Treize Kushrenada. Zechs Marquise, who had guided the White Fang to war with the Earth, had supposedly died in that final battle. His sister, Relena Darlian, had assumed the role of Earth's Vice Foreign Minister. The former soldiers of those wars had dissipated to carry on their own lives. The pilots of the mobile suits called Gundams, likewise, had been scattered, without farewell or explanation, to the winds, each unaware of what had become of the others.

And Heero was acutely aware that someone was following him.

The stalker was not blatant in his pursuit; he was in fact so discreet that anyone else lacking experience in this area would not have been able to detect it. Yet his constant presence was distinctly known to Heero, who sensed neither good will nor malice in it, and who had really ceased to care one way or another.

After a moment of this horrid, insubstantial game, he was sure he knew the identity of his stalker.

The suspicion was confirmed within only a few days. He had wandered aimlessly since his disappearance, and his wandering through the European continent had ended without reason just south of Milan. The wars had left the city ravaged and decadent, and for lack of anything else to do, he had taken up residence in an abandoned apartment building. It was to this apartment he returned on an afternoon that had already seemed to have no end, and within only a few minutes he became aware that someone else was there with him.

His hand, discreetly tucked into the pocket of his coat, tightened on the gun as he proceeded through the cold, unkempt halls, listening for any sound the intruder might make.

The silence spoke to his apathetic awareness of some impending epiphany.

The intruder was patient. An hour passed, another, and beyond the filmed windows the sun sank below the battle-scarred horizon, yet still he made no sign of his presence.

The gun did not leave Heero's hand as he waited, occupying a third-floor room where he had set up his computer. Nothing he had stored on it held any interest for him now, though his eyes seemed locked to the monitor, which concealed from view the revolver. Patience, it seemed, was his only virtue.

He heard no sound of furtive movement nor did any change ever occur in the surrounding shadows; when at last the figure emerged, it seemed credible that he had done so out of thin air.

Heero had known long before that encounter the name of the man who followed him, yet when the face materialized from the shadows his breath nonetheless silently caught in his throat, and had he not regained his composure quickly the gun would have fallen from his grip.

"I see you remember me, then." A tight cynical smile, such a familiar voice, deep and resonant and as melodic as that of the devil. The face was almost exactly as it had been when they parted, almost exactly ten years ago, unfazed by age and unmarked by the explosion that should have killed him when the gunshot had failed.

The man, who to the world's knowledge had died on colony L3X18999 during the elimination of the Cosmos Arm, stepped fully out of the shadows, revealing himself to be clothed entirely in black, as he had always been in the past.

_The devil started at her side, comely, and tall, and black as jet._

His treacherous body tried to move away from the table, to rise up brandishing the gun and attempt what no soldier or explosion could, but his mind would not allow it.

An extension of the night's darkness, it seemed, Odin smiled. The expression was enough to chill the spine of angels and demons alike. "Still so silent, are we? I shouldn't have expected any less. Here sits the soldier who saved Earth from certain annihilation, and he refuses to speak so much as a word of greeting to an old acquaintance." He stepped closer to the table. "You may put away gun you're holding. I have no intention of assaulting you."

"What do you want with me."

Odin gave a soft laugh. God, why couldn't he have forgotten what that laugh had sounded like, that bitter, cynical quality that had not truly come into being until after her death, and now it was she whom he saw as his furiously closed on Odin's dark image, her face streaked with blood—

"What I want of you is irrelevant." He paused, took another step closer. "However, your assumption that I request something of you is correct."

"Then what is it."

"Did I not tell you only a moment ago that what I want is irrelevant, Takeru?"

He shuddered at the sound of his own name, his name that he had abandoned so many years ago, the damnable name given to him by a woman with the face of an angel.

Odin must have seen him flinch, for he gave another familiar, cynical smile. "What is it, Takeru? Does that disturb you?"

"I have nothing to say to you," he said, forcefully and yet still monotonously.

Odin stood away from the table. "Very well then. That's just for the best. But if you should recover from having someone bring up your past when you've tried so hard to discard it and reconsider having something to say to me, come to Milan tomorrow afternoon. I'll be waiting on from four until six."

"I have nothing to say to you," he repeated, and yet his words lacked their former conviction, and his voice sounded fragile, quieter, almost weak.

Odin nodded. "Of course." He turned and started to walk away, returning to the shadows as though he were a part of them and they willingly accepted him into their cold embrace.

"Wait," Heero called before Odin disappeared fully into the darkness, without intending to and after the word had left his lips he did not know why he had said it.

Odin halted but did not turn. "Yes?"

"Where will you be waiting."

He had a feeling that, though he could not see it, Odin smiled then. "Beside the statue in the center of the piazza."

"Don't expect me to be there."

"I had no intention of it. God forbid anyone should ever expect anything of you, Takeru."

With that he took his leave, and the following afternoon Heero did indeed find himself walking in the direction of the piazza. He would never be able to explain, either to himself or to Odin, why he did, but of course it was irrelevant to him. God forbid something should ever be anything more than irrelevant to him.

Odin, though dressed completely in black, did not seem out of place in the semi-crowded square, but rather appeared a part of it all, as though he, too, had been sculpted and placed on these streets in some long ago age. Indeed, he seemed, as he stood within the crowd and yet apart from it, something more natural and more belonging to the city than anything else around him.

"I'm here," Heero said, stopping three feet short of Odin's watchful figure. "What do you want?"

Odin stepped away from the statue and gestured for Heero to follow. "I wouldn't worry, Takeru," he began, walking casually down the bustling streets of the piazza. "I wasn't expecting this of you."

"Hn."

"Somehow that word sounded much more poetic when spoken by your mother."

He stifled a grunt and pressed on through the crowds behind him.

"Do you yet have anything to say to me?" Odin asked finally.

"No."

"Even after all these years in which I've been presumed dead and yourself presumed all but the same."

"I said no, didn't I."

"Ah, but then you have indeed gone against your former convictions and have said something to me."

"I'm not what I was," he said, without reason but with much regret afterward.

"Considering that the last time I spoke with you, you were eight years old, I would hope not."

"You know what I meant."

"Then you're at last admitting that you were not always like this."

He said nothing.

At last Odin moved to the order of business. Heero listened attentively, feeling no surprise at anything he was told, and when Odin made his proposition he gave neither an acceptation nor a denial.

"Let me ask you something," he said, as Odin started to leave.

Odin raised an eyebrow. "I'll let you."

"Why do you want me to do this."

"Because, Takeru, I have decided that neither of us is entirely obsolete, not yet at least. I'll leave you to think on it. If you should decide you want to accept, there will be a private plane waiting to take you to Spain tomorrow evening in a port north of here."

"And if I don't want to."

"Then for God's sake don't."

He stifled a groan. "You know what I meant."

"If you decline, I will return to being dead in your eyes."

He grunted and watched passively as Odin, his former guardian, gradually disappeared into the crowd.

"Don't expect it of me," he whispered, to nothing and to no one.

God forbid anyone should.

**II**

Two nights later he received another visitation from Odin. He had accepted the proposition and the previous day had been taken to what would become the counteroffensive's production base. But he had not seen Odin that first evening, had instead been greeted and shown to the rooms he would occupy below the ground by an elderly Chinese man.

After a moment, he had recognized him as Xing Yuan-Chen.

"Are you always going to do this," Heero asked when Odin, without warning, had entered the bunker given to him. "No. In fact you shall be rid of my presence soon enough. I'm going to join the others in Vólos. Yuan-Chen will be left in charge here."

"Do you really believe what you're doing is right."

Odin considered this for a moment. "I wouldn't know. I've never been a judge of such things."

"You're doing it for her, aren't you."

"For whom, Takeru? Hmm? Would you care to refer to her as something more than 'her?'"

"Hn."

Odin was suddenly in front of him, only inches away from him. Heero realized that in his concealed hand he held a long blade.

"You will not employ your childish defense tactics on me, Takeru, not now."

"I don't have anything to defend."

"You've everything to defend. Is it truly pain that makes you so defensive, your espoused fear of pain? Will you ever admit it to yourself that something has hurt you?"

"Would you have said any of that to her."

Odin flashed him an angry look. "Who was she to you, Takeru? And why do you flinch whenever I address you by the name she gave you?"

"I–"

"Is it possible that whenever you hear that name it's her voice that you hear saying it?"

"She wasn't…"

"Wasn't what? The one who caused you so much pain? But her death hurt you, didn't it? Admit it, Takeru, the memory pains you still, doesn't it? Why can't you admit that to yourself, when you know that if you admit it, it wouldn't hurt quite so badly?"

"I–"

"And then there was Dekim Barton, who helped to make you into this empty shell you are today. He caused you so much pain, didn't he? Pain that you refuse to admit to. Pain that you even now will not relinquish. But you won't show a sign of it. Tell me, Takeru, does physical pain elicit an emotion from you?"

Heero saw the blade rising and, powerless to stop it, he winced as its edge was driven into his hand. Odin brought the blade up to his wrist in one graceful, curving movement, and Heero had perhaps never felt so fully detached from physical pain in his entire life, or at least since the last beating he had endured at Dekim's hands.

He winced. He winced, and nothing more.

"You're searching for an end to that pain, aren't you, Takeru? And end to those memories that so haunt you."

The blade was withdrawn and disappeared again into the folds of Odin's coat.

Later, after Odin had left, he at last came out of it enough to allow Yuan-Chen to examine and stitch the wound, all without question.

**III**

The clouds had dissipated and the moon now shone down upon him, upon the pier, upon the ebony waves as they lapped up against the pier's supports. A light breeze, chilled by the Mediterranean, blew over him, blew through him as though he were finally fading away into nothing, into the cold, damnable emptiness that he so wanted to consume him. Had he ever wanted anything else than this?

He dipped his hand into the frigid water, let it run over his skin, penetrating to the bone, and his thoughts turned now to her. He had long ago lost use of those first, pure memories of her; he no longer needed the memories of her smile, her voice, of her dressed as a boy and all in black, that almost playful light in her usually solemn eyes as she defeated student after student, allowing him to watch, knowing that light only came into her eyes whenever he was there, or perhaps only whenever she could become somebody else. He had no use for his old wondering if she allowed him to watch in hopes of imparting some of her strength to him.

This was not the woman he thought of now.

Instead he saw those first nights without her, those years; he saw the photograph on the table before him of her face, bruised yet determined; he saw the photograph being snatched away and the gnarled hands lifting his head to face their owner.

"_Do you know who I am, boy?"_

Groaning, trying to pull away from these inhumanly strong hands.

"_I am the demon who took your mother to Hell."_

Even in those days immediately following her death, he had never wanted her as much as he had in those first months in the custody of Dekim Barton. She had fared well in her period of incarceration, though he knew not the specifics of it, and what had he done but become exactly what Dekim had wanted of him? She had given him nothing, while her pathetic son had given up his very soul. One for one, perhaps.

A shudder coursing through him, not from the cold but from something else that could not be named, not, at least, by him. A small sigh, like that of a child. Damnable emotion.

_I have failed you so badly. _

The waves lapped against his hand, tiny smooth caresses devoid of life.

_Mother…_

"It's a beautiful night, isn't it?"

The sound of the voice behind him startled him so much that had he not quickly pulled away from the pier's edge he would have fallen into the ebony water.

He turned and saw a woman watching him from the shore. The shadows cast upon her face made her unrecognizable at first, but when she stepped up onto the dock he realized who she was.

"What do you want."

She walked briskly toward him as though she thought he wanted her company. "What are you doing out here?" she asked, sitting down next to him on the edge of the pier.

"I asked you what you wanted."

The redhead — he had come to think of her under this term, for he had never caught her name — shrugged. "Very well, then. I wanted to see why you were out here."

"Hn."

"We've never been properly introduced," she said after a moment.

He stifled a groan. "Don't take this personally, but I didn't come out here to provoke a social gathering."

"This isn't a social gathering," she said, and not without the same vague cynicism he had always heard in her voice. "This is merely two people sitting by the ocean at the most ungodly hour and one of them is trying to introduce herself to the other." Her smile faded, her eyes sobered. "I don't bite."

He merely looked at her.

"My name is Marguerite St. Domingue." She extended her hand.

After a moment of hesitation, he took it. "Heero Yuy."

"It's a pleasure."

"Hn."

Her eyes traveled to the black water and back to him. He felt terribly open under her gaze.

"It wasn't that bad, was it? Engaging in such a simple social interaction, I mean."

"Don't you have anything better to do?"

"No. What could be better than chipping away at the icy façade of one of our organization's most secretive members?"

Her sarcasm unnerved him as much as her voice ringing out through the silence had earlier.

"Of course, no one is forcing you to talk to me. Had you been terribly unwilling to give me your name, you wouldn't have done it, would you?"

"I don't see what any of this has to do with anything."

"Then you've already grasped the point. The most meaningful experiences in life are those that revolve around nothing."

"Don't wax philosophical on me."

She smiled, and her expression was so much like Odin's that for a moment he had to glance away. "I have no intention of waxing philosophical, and as for doing _anything _on you, I have someone else for that, thank you very much."

He flashed her an unguarded shocked expression and she laughed softly.

"I thought that would elicit some kind of emotion from you," she said.

He grunted and moved away from her.

She did not seem offended by this. She studied the water in silence as though reading her own future in the patterns of the waves, and at last she returned to her solemnity. "Why don't you tell me your real name?" she asked after the passing of several minutes.

"I told you — my name is Heero Yuy."

She nodded. "And so it has been for quite a few years, I assume. But what was it before you took that one?

"What was yours."

She smiled. "If you must know, my given full name is Magdalena Marguerite Gabrielle d'Anton de St. Domingue, but I'm sure you are able to see why I shorten it."

"My name is irrelevant."

"As is half of mine."

His eyes met hers. "What do you want."

"Only to speak to you."

"You've spoken."

"Hmm." He thought for a moment that she would leave finally, but strangely she remained.

"I've not come here to attack you," she said, and for the first time her melodic French accent became noticeable to him. "Nor have I come to subject you to an inquisition. Unlike some of the others under Odin's employ, it would seem, I know nothing about your life or your past. I've not really come to pry these things from you either. It's not knowing that intrigues me."

He scoffed. "You're wasting your time. I'm not a romantic intrigue."

"I never said you were romantic in the least. As I've stated, I already have someone to supply me when it comes to those matters. You compliment yourself too much by thinking otherwise. I find you, thus far, to be rude, distrustful, and a bit cocky as well. So rest assured, _mon cher, _you hold nothing romantic for me."

He was silenced again by her acidic response, but he did not look away from her.

Her dark red hair gleamed under the silken moonlight.

"What were you thinking about," she asked finally, turning her eyes back to the sea, "when I interrupted you? You seemed quite lost in it."

He shrugged. "What do you care."

"I _don't_ care." Whatever it is, it matters very little to me."

For a long while he could only remain silent. When at last he spoke, he did not intend to answer her question, yet before he could evade it he heard the reply rolling from his damnable, treacherous tongue. "Someone I knew a long time ago."

She seemed momentarily stunned, but her voice did not convey it. "Would I be prying if I asked you who this 'someone' is?"

"Who that someone _was_."

"Is this one of the many proverbial skeletons in your closet?"

"What are you talking about."

"That's what they say about you," she continued, "that you're haunted by and hiding more memories than Odin Lowe himself. Is it true?"

"Who are 'they.'"

"Everyone who has taken note of you. Did you really think that if you scurried through the crowds without speaking no one would notice you?"

"Hn."

Again she neglected to respond for some time. He wished as much as he knew how to that she would finally come to her senses and leave.

"They also say that a part of you is in love with death," she said as she moved so that he would be forced to look at her, and he bit down on his lower lips to silence the groan that arose in his throat.

"You listen to what others say too much."

"Perhaps you're right, but I only listen to their ramblings if I agree with them."

"Hn."

"You're quite fond of that guttural little word, aren't you?"

"As fond as you'd like to believe I am of death."

Her eyes widened behind her glasses in mock astonishment. "Do my ears deceive me or did I just hear the infamous Heero Yuy utter a sarcastic remark?"

He said nothing.

"Am I so wrong to agree with them?" she asked, mercifully deciding that to mock him further would be nothing more than a waste of her time.

"What do you think."

"I think that I'm not wrong at all, and that's why my presence bothers you so badly."

"You're not bothering me."

"And you've just spoken one of the worse lies I've ever heard in my life. Don't think I haven't noticed you wincing every time I've opened my mouth. Am I striking a nerve somewhere in you?"

"Hn."

"So I am then. But which one disturbs you more — having to accept that you've allowed something in the past to trouble you, or acknowledging that you long for death?"

"What would you know about that."

"About what?"

"Death."

"I wouldn't know anything about that. I haven't died yet."

"About _longing _for death. What would you know about it." The expression that he shot her was unintentional but nonetheless bitter.

"About longing for death?" Her eyes looked as though she had just been injured. She stared at him a moment longer, then with a quiet, mirthless laugh she glanced down at her hands. "What would I know about longing for death." She removed her coat and pushed up the long sleeves of her shirt, revealing two wide clasp bracelets, one on each wrist. Silently she undid them and lay both silver bands on the pier beside her. "Would you like to see what I know about it?" She turned over both arms, exposing the vulnerable underside of her wrists. "This is what I would know about longing for death."

Running down each wrist, beginning at the very base of the palm and stopping only a couple of inches above the elbow, was a swollen white scar, lighter than the tone of her skin and in the moonlight appearing as the color of a cleaned bone. The wounds had been inflicted only within the past one or two years, it appeared, and both had been mortally deep, the right only slightly more shallow as she was right-handed.

"Do you think this impresses me." He laid a single hand upon her forearm and turned it so that her pale wrist with its bold scar was no longer facing him.

"No, and I have no need of impressing you." She paused long enough to refasten the bracelets on her arms and pull her sleeves and coat back over them. "You are not the only one who has espoused death, Heero Yuy, nor will you be the last."

"Why are you doing this."

"I saw you sitting out here so passionately alone with your thoughts, and you looked as though you wanted to jump and end that longing. I merely wanted to see if you would do it."

He gave her the closest thing he could muster to an incredulous look.

She gestured toward the black rippling water. "Go on. I won't stop you. If you need me to I'll even hold you down should you have any second thoughts."

He started to get up to leave and she pushed him back down.

"You long for death, don't you? This is a perfect opportunity for it. Go on and do it if you want it so badly. Or perhaps you don't want it as badly as I did."

He rose and this time she allowed him to.

"You really don't want it then, do you?" she said somberly, staring up into his eyes with those pained ones of hers. She stood up and touched his hand warmly, and for once in his life he didn't try to recoil. "Thank you for this pleasant conversation. I've now decided it was well worth my time, and I sincerely hope you'll soon realize that it was worth yours as well." She stepped away from him and slowly walked toward the edge of the pier. As she disappeared into the shadows, as silently as she had come, she called back, "If you don't truly want it, you shouldn't waste your life asking for it."

He put her out of his mind and returned to the pier's edge.

**Author's Notes:** This chapter, too, was written long before most of Ballad as character study for Heero. It is much shorter than I remember it being, but I'm not entirely displeased with it. The relationship between Heero and Odin has always been an odd one for me. Odin is quite the stoic until he appears in a scene with the 'emotionless' Heero, who unintentionally begins to display a hated sensitivity around those who are connected to his past. Heero's scar is finally explained in this chapter; Odin is not psychotic by any means, but Heero's lack of outward emotion does offend him, I think. My friend for whom this story was written actually drew a cute little doujinshi parody of this scene: in it, when Heero barely flinches as Odin slices up his hand, Odin then decides to cut his arm off.

There is a very noticeable lack of question marks in Heero's dialogue, and I feel I should explain this. In my mind, Heero very rarely sounds interrogative; therefore, his questions are often written as statements to reflect the intended deadpan tone of his voice.

I hope I didn't go overboard with Heero's repressed bitterness over his mother. I wanted there to be a real reason for his hollow nature, and trauma due to the death of his mother at a very young age seemed to make sense back when I first had the idea. I don't think Heero consciously fears being what would have been a failure in his mother's eyes; it is only when he is seriously remembering her that the part of him that is still capable of expressing emotion questions his own merits in light of the person his mother was.

Regarding Marguerite, yes, this is Rhyn's lover, and one of my favorite original characters, despite her infrequent appearances. Her name is ridiculously long, but it is meant to be humorous, and I will justify it by saying that it, too, is meant to be a reflection of social/linguistic changes that have occurred by the AC era.


	19. Chapter Eighteen

_Chapter Eighteen_

**I**

He had only one mission left to complete before he could return to the Sanq Kingdom, to his beautiful, lying Relena whom he had left while in an unforgivable rage, to his pregnant Lucrezia. He was eager to fulfill this final task and be done with the whole thing, yet at the same time he half-dreaded returning home. Treize would not be there, he was sure of that. He and Relena had always met on his territory, where he could continue his perpetual drama of chivalry and elegance and beauty for her while she watched on in awe. There was nothing Treize wanted more than to infiltrate the Sanq Kingdom, but he wouldn't go there himself to court Relena. There was too much at stake if he were seen, and it seemed he had begun to realize that the fantasy in which he lived only existed in his own world, not in the countries supporting him, not in Sanq, not yet at least. He would have to drop the charade once within the boundaries of the kingdom, and if he dropped too much of it Relena would realize what was going on.

Zechs leaned over the railing at the edge of the ferry. He looked down into the foamy black water below — so many feet beneath him at this point, and how he would love to be at the depths at it all, weightless and careless and lifeless and free . . .

How could he have left her as he had, fuming and refusing to hear her out? It was Treize at whom his anger had been directed, not Relena, but she was the one who had suffered for it, for he was capable of hurting only her with harsh words spoken only out of outrage and fear but not with sincerity. This was almost as reprehensible as the way he had left Lucrezia in space, and now, thinking of her as well, he wondered if Relena had told Lucrezia when she returned to Sanq, and if she had, what Lucrezia thought of the matter. Was he capable of doing nothing but hurting the two of them, the only ones he had ever really loved, of all but killing them when they needed him?

"What's wrong with me?" he asked of the smooth, calm deep into which he stared, that inviting strait of dark water. He was not alone on the ferry —there were at least two dozen others on it as well — but no one seemed to hear him, as though he didn't exist, still dead after being ripped apart in the explosion of the Epyon. He was just as alone in this as he had ever been.

He suddenly found himself wishing that Lucrezia were there with him. She would know how to go about this next meeting and this next request; she had always known how to get these things done. She would tell him to quit feeling sorry for himself and do what needed be done, just as she had always told him that when he needed to hear it, and it was only her voice that he would listen to. Her voice was what he needed to hear, regardless of what she told him.

He could call her, he supposed. There was a woman only a few yards away from him, also leaning against the railing, whom he had seen with a phone only minutes ago, and he could ask her if he could borrow it. But he decided against it. Lucrezia would probably be asleep now, asleep with his child growing within her, and even as much as he felt he needed to talk to her he did not want to wake her with his incessant weakness.

This mission was the last one Odin had sent him on, and perhaps it, not his completed confrontation with Heero, would prove to be the hardest. This was almost as personal as that one had been, and it was perhaps something Zechs should have done a long time ago. Treize would look at it as an insult, one in return for Relena, and maybe it was partly that, but it was also another step in preventing more unnecessary bloodshed.

"Land, ho!" a child yelled somewhere ahead of him on the ferry, and when he shifted his eyes in that direction he could just barely make out in the pre-dawn darkness the shape of the ports of Morocco. The child laughed and came running down the ferry's deck, so innocent a young boy, and he was followed by an even smaller girl. Laughing, both of them. Laughing as they ran past the killer of his own men, laughing even as their mother called after them, laughing just as the man with the long platinum hair who watched them once had laughed with his own sister when they were of those ages. They collided with each other near the opposite edge of the ferry and fell in a small heap, holding onto each other and still laughing, these children whom he prayed would never endure the pain and separation that he and his sister had.

So innocent, these children.

So innocent.

_Relena. _

He wondered, even as his mind struggled against the thought, how far Treize had already gone in his maddening quest for power with Relena. Surely he hadn't managed to proceed very far; surely he had not done what he said he had. Relena would never submit to it. Zechs refused to believe she would. This was not just any girl of whom he was thinking, it was not the one he was about to see: it was Relena, innocent Relena who surely could not know much of such matters as he feared Treize would try to involve her in; sweet, young Relena who would forever remain innocent in his eyes. Treize couldn't have done anything to her, for she wouldn't let him. She was too pure for that.

But, he reminded himself against his own will, Lucrezia had been so innocent at one time, hadn't she? And now, even as she carried his child, she was still innocent, still as pure as she was the day he had met her, before the wars, before Relena's missions and the Prevention Organization, still pure even as Relena was.

He would not think of this any longer.

The ferry docked at the port. Zechs was the last to depart, lingering until all others were out of sight and the laughing children had been gathered up by their amused mother.

The hospital where the boy and his guardian stayed was near the shore. It could not be seen from the port but the walk would not be long, and Zechs decided that if he could not have Lucrezia there with him, he did not want anybody and that the solitary walk would be beneficial to him.

The hospital's name was printed in five different languages on the sign outside. English was one of those, thankfully, but nevertheless his eyes went over the other four titles. He could understand none of them. It was Lucrezia who could translate almost every language she encountered, not he.

This hospital was perhaps the best in the region, maybe in all of Africa now, mostly because the necessary funds had been properly directed to it. He supposed this was because of how many wealthy families in Europe and Africa and the Middle East had had loved ones critically injured in the wars and how much those families were willing to pay to see that their victims received the absolute best treatment. Some of the patients were here were locals injured recently, but most were spillovers from the Spanish hospitals, spillovers who had to be transferred because the medical facilities in Spain could no longer afford the care and upkeep of patients who were no longer capable of feeding themselves, of those whom the wars and the acts of terrorism that followed had left unable to do anything but stare up at the ceiling with vacant, unseeing eyes.

There was much speculation in regard to what had caused the explosion of Quatre Winner's shuttle in outer space six months ago. Some believed it was a terrorist act; some said it was merely a technical mishap. Zechs had not formed an opinion on the matter and, considering that it was not the comatose Quatre he had come here to see, he had no intention of doing so tonight.

Visiting hours were so long past they were about to begin again, but, even as reputable as this hospital was, such trivial things were not strictly enforced here. He would most likely not have any problem getting in, and if one arose, all he had to do was to tell whatever person of authority was here this morning who he was. There were certain times, he conceded, that his name (either one of them, in fact), regardless of what tragedy was connected to it, came as a useful advantage.

He stopped for a moment before entering the hospital. This was one of the best medical facilities within all of Southern Europe and Northern Africa combined — _the _best for patients in much more critical and longer-lasting conditions —, the second best on the continent being the former military hospital in Lake Victoria, but even so it could still stand some improvements. That much was evident from the outside.

The best hospitals in Europe were those in the Sanq Kingdom. Relena had seen to that, and this was one of the more biased actions she had taken that he could condone with pride in her. It was probably the first intelligent action she had taken since her coronation, deciding that she could not begin to improve conditions of neighboring nations and the colonies that relied partly on the support of Sanq until she first worked to improve her own country. The reasons that so many people were not in physical therapy or lying in comas in Sanq varied. Some felt against the Sanq for political reasons, some felt they would be taking a horrible advantage of the kingdom's generosity because of their own or their loved one's opposition to total pacifism, and for some it was simply too far away.

The reason that Quatre Winner was in Morocco instead of Sanq was a bit of a combination of the three. In his life as a Gundam pilot, an independent soldier, age and guardianship had not mattered, nor had it when he reunited the scattered assets of the Winner family estate and took over the business that had once belonged to his father. He was young, yes, but still of age and undeniably intelligent and competent, and as long as he remained that way there had been no need for anyone to claim responsibility of him. However, as it so often seemed in situations like this, after he had been left a human vegetable by the shuttle explosion, _someone _had had to step forward and claim guardianship of the boy, and because of family difficulties, none of his siblings had been able to sign for custody. Quatre had been a ward of the state for a month — which was, Zechs knew, merely a more tasteful way of saying that a member of the Council had paid for him to be properly fed, cleaned, and hooked up to whatever machines the hospital wanted — until someone _had _come forward to claim him, and that someone had not been a member of the family at all but none other than Miss Dorothy Catalonia. She had signed every document the hospital board could thrust in her face and had been awarded legal guardianship of the boy after only the briefest skirmish with a distant member of the Winner family, and had then signed for her beloved Quatre to be transferred to a hospital in her native Spain. The medical facilities in Spain were good but their resources were limited, and Dorothy had known that if the hospital's funds ever became too insufficient they would have no problem in cutting back how much care was given to patients in conditions such as Quatre's. She was no longer so well-off herself — in fact, Zechs had heard rumors that she was rather poor compared to what she had once been — but she had managed to petition a wealthy relative in Madrid for the money to send Quatre elsewhere and her petition had been granted. A month after being moved to Spain, Quatre Raberba Winner was transferred across the Strait of Gibraltar to Morocco.

Zechs let out a heavy sigh and continued up the walkway to the hospital's main entrance. He had dawdled long enough. He still was not looking forward to this reunion for he did not know how she would react to his proposition, but there was no going back now, not after coming this far.

He cast one final glance to the desert around him, to the sand hills that were still dyed black in the early morning, to the sky that would in only an hour or so more lighten as the sun began its ascension. He had once said while on the battleship Libra that Earth could only look beautiful from the cold darkness of outer space. That had been one of only two things he had said to Relena in that confrontation that had not been a lie, the other being how strong and how generous she had become over the years. He truly had believed that then, but now, looking over his shoulder at the star- and moonlit desert, he realized how very wrong he had been.

He smiled faintly and pushed open the glass door.

The lights were low inside the hospital; the corridors were dim and silent as the chambers of the newly dead. The only sound as he crossed the corridor that would eventually end at the nurses' station was the echoing of his footfalls, and he was reminded of the walk from the shuttle to the hospital on Mars, of how very terrified he had been as he followed the doctor, who had refused to tell him anything about Lucrezia's condition. He felt none of that fear now but he did feel a strange kind of dread as he walked, a dread that made his every step heavier and made him wish once more that Lucrezia were with him.

There were three women at the nurses' station, all young, all looking in dire need of rest. The one who seemed of higher authority stepped forward as Zechs approached, her eyes sweet and expectant. Just by looking at her Zechs could tell she had not been witness to much involving the wars of the previous years, not even the one that had resulted in the expansion of the Moroccan borders to include this locale, and the darkness of her skin, much darker than was characteristic of a native of Morocco, led him further to believe that she was originally from a much more southern region of Africa.

"May I help you, sir?" she asked when he reached the desk. There was no apprehension in her voice. She did not, by looking, recognize whom he was.

"I'm here to see Quatre Raberba Winner."

Her eyes brightened at the boy's name (another one of his adoring caretakers, it seemed) but her smile faltered. "I'm sorry, sir," she said in her heavily accented English. "Visiting hours do not begin until another hour but if you want you can wait in–"

"My name is Milliardo Peacecraft. If I'm not mistaken, there is a young lady who stays by his bed constantly. Ring her and give her that name. I'm sure she will not be bothered by my early visit. Please ring her."

The nurse's eyes widened slightly when he told her who he was, but still she displayed no signs of apprehension toward him. She went to the phone in the corner of the desk and dialed in the code for a specific room, then when the phone in that room was answered she said warmly, "Good morning, Miss Catalonia. I hope I've not disturbed you. I'm fine, thank you, and you? Good. Miss Catalonia, there is a man here, a Mr. Milliardo Peacecraft, and he…yes, I'll send him right away." She hung up the phone and walked around the desk, out into the open, to his side. "Miss Catalonia says you may come up. The room is #403." She paused for a moment, still looking directly into his eyes. When she spoke again her voice was lower as to prevent the other two nurses from hearing, though they didn't seem to be paying any attention to them. "What you did was a good thing, Mr. Milliardo. Others may not have seen it, but there are some who did and they hold a great admiration for you."

He looked at her quizzically, though he knew what she meant.

"Many people did not know what you were trying to accomplish when you became the leader of the White Fang," she explained. "Many others believed you were indeed going to permit the complete destruction of the Earth. But as I've said, there are others, myself included, who saw what was going on. There were others who saw that you were trying to achieve the peace you had been raised believing in, and that the only way you could do that was to stage that one final battle in which people of Earth fought for space and people of space fought for the Earth. There may have been another battle after that one, but it never even compared to those of the past and Earth and space have been at peace ever since, so you did indeed achieve what you set out to accomplish, Mr. Milliardo."

_But how long is that peace going to last_? he thought, but maintained his silence.

"Go on now," she said, motioning him forward with one slender hand. "Miss Catalonia is waiting for you." When he turned toward the next hall, placing his back to her, she added, "May God bless you, Milliardo Peacecraft."

He halted and his eyes went back to her, then he mumbled a pathetically inadequate 'thank you.'

He crossed the hall thoughtlessly, his mind a complete void, and when he reached the elevator he pressed the button marked '4' automatically. It ascended quickly and Quatre's room was only two doors down from it, and this still inspired no mental action in his brain. He hesitated once outside the door but only for a moment, then he drew a deep breath and rapped his knuckles against it.

"Please come in, Mr. Milliardo."

Without taking a moment to consider what he was going to say to the girl, he did.

The room was lit only by a lamp on the short table in the corner, and when Zechs glanced up he saw there was no bulb in the light socket. It was cold inside but the heater against the wall opposite the door was off regardless. He was sure that this was the way Dorothy wanted it, not the physicians in charge of the Winner boy's care.

She had not looked up when he entered, nor did she when he eased the door shut behind him. There was a single chair pulled up close to the bed and it was here that she remained as he studied her, her eyes lowered to the floor and half-closed as if in prayer, one hand resting above her knee and the other in the slack grip of the boy.

She had changed so much since he had last seen her, so much that it at first stunned him to the point of speechlessness. She no longer wore clothes resembling military uniforms as she had so loved to wear even when they were children; instead she was dressed in a simple black skirt with a simple white blouse. Her hair was still long and light but it looked rather uncared for now: it hung limp around her face, falling in a lifeless heap to her waist. And her face…here was perhaps the most profound change. Gone was the mischievous grin and the sparkle of her eyes; her mouth was set, her skin pale and grainy, her eyes dull and sorrowful.

But there was something else about her as well, wasn't there? Something that had perhaps come with age or maybe living on to see the aftermath of a war. When they were young, Zechs had always found her rather awkward-looking, but now he saw that over the past year, even despite her unkempt appearance, she had become a strangely beautiful woman.

"Welcome back to Earth, Milliardo," she said finally, her voice still soft and almost whispered at so low a volume. "For a while I believed you would never return. May I ask why you did?"

"I have business to attend to here."

She gave a weak smile. "Would that business involve my cousin?"

He blinked, unable to speak.

She looked up at him. "Is it really so strange that I should know about Treize's survival? He informed me of it shortly after what I believed was your death, Milliardo."

"Are you aware then of what he is doing?"

Her eyes returned to the boy and she, almost absently, began stroking his hand. "Yes. He doesn't know it, though."

"Have you–"

"Known about it the entire time? Yes. I became aware of it in Spain. Tell me, Milliardo, is it my cousin or his adversary who has sent you here?"

"The latter."

"You want me to petition the Council, don't you?" She never glanced up; these words left her lips as she continued to watch the boy as if he might blink and she would miss it.

Strangely, her foreknowledge of this did not surprise him. Not after all that he had seen within these past two nights, not after what had happened, what had happened with Relena—

"Yes," he said, taking another step toward her. "As Duke Dermail's direct heir, you are the only one with the influence the counteroffensive needs over the Council."

She sighed. How pained she sounded, how weak and how very tired.

After several minutes he realized that she had no response for him.

He went to the bed, looked down at the pale, blonde boy. "How is he, Dorothy?"

"There hasn't been a change in him for almost two weeks now. His pulse quickened once, but since then, there's been nothing. They"— she hesitated, and he saw that her eyes were moist —"They don't believe he's ever going to recover."

"Do you agree with them?"

"No. I don't know. They came to me again a month ago and asked me to consider having the machines turned off."

"Did you consider it?"

"No."

"Letting him live on like this is no mercy to him, Dorothy. If you can even call this living."

"Do you think I don't know that, Milliardo?"

"Then why will you not consider letting him go?"

She glared at him. "If it were Miss Noin laying here, would you still say the same?"

He was silent.

"It's ironic, isn't it," she said after some time, "that I should finally decide I want nothing more to do with war ever again, and now I'm being called into one because of my family connections."

"You're the only one who can do this, Dorothy. And it is your own decision. I will not…none of them will force you into doing this."

"But if I don't, my cousin will become the next Dekim Barton."

"Quite possibly, yes."

"Why is he doing this, Milliardo? Has he told you? Why is he trying to start another war?"

"I don't know, Dorothy. I think he's the only one who can answer that."

She sighed again; her head fell against the bed, resting beside the boy's limp, useless arm.

It was not right, he knew, that she should be called into this, that she should be all but forced to leave the boy's side and travel with him to Luxembourg, to address the Supreme Earthsphere Council on a matter she wanted nothing to do with. She had spent so many years of her life nurturing a passion for warfare and yet at the same time a loathing for it, and now that she had at last turned her back on it, content to spend her life ignorant of the world and waiting upon a miracle that would never come, she was being asked to espouse it again, even if only for a brief time. But there was truly no one else who could do this.

Not all, not even most of the civilians of Earth had opposed the Romefeller Foundation, and despite some of the Foundation's actions during Earth and space's time of war, there were still many, government officials and those who lived in blissful aristocracy particularly, who held an admiration for the Foundation's late Duke Dermail. Those who had first organized and designated positions of the Supreme Earthsphere Council had been among this number and, partially out of their admiration and partially as an attempt to symbolize clemency upon the mistakes and transgressions committed in the battles of the past, a seat of power amongst the Council's higher members was designated to the heir of Dermail's estate, granting this heir honorary membership within the Council as well as a certain amount of power in the Council's affairs.

Despite her age and her own actions in the past, there had been, to Zechs's knowledge, no qualms about granting this seat to Dorothy. It was well-known, particularly in such high ranks, that she was fully competent when it came to such matters.

"I never thought I would use it," she said quietly. Her lips brushed against the boy's wrist. "My position on the Council…I never intended on using it."

"You don't have to, Dorothy."

"And you didn't have to come here, Mr. Milliardo."

He moved behind her chair, placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Must I decide tonight?" she asked, raising up from the bed where the boy lay. How strange it was to see this young man he had once fought so fiercely against lying so helplessly upon this immaculate bed, unmoving, unaware, unable to truly live.

"Preferably, yes," he said, knowing that this answer would only distress her more.

"Then may I ask something?"

"Of course, Dorothy."

"How many men on the Council are supporting my cousin?"

"One that we know of. Possibly others."

"Is this one the man who funded him?"

"Yes." He did not question how she knew all of this. Ultimately it did not matter to him, and he feared such questions would do nothing but upset her.

She nodded in consideration. "How is Miss Noin?" she asked finally, and for the first time since he had come here she sounded almost like the girl he had last seen her as, the intelligent, militant, and terribly troubled granddaughter of the leader of the Romefeller Foundation.

Somehow, this off-subject question seemed to lighten the atmosphere that had fallen upon the room. He cleared his throat and said simply, "She is well."

"And with your child if I'm not mistaken." She glanced back at him, offered a weak smile. "Trowa Barton informed me of it. He and I have kept in close touch after…"—she gestured at Quatre's lifeless form—"after what happened to him. They were great friends, as you probably know."

He gave a small, sullen nod.

Dorothy returned to stroking the boy's pale hand. "And how is Miss Relena?"

Zechs fended off a shudder at her name.

"Is something wrong, Mr. Milliardo?"

Again he cleared his throat, for suddenly it felt as though something were blocking it, disabling him from breathing. "No," he said finally, almost thickly. "The Queen is, naturally, distraught over recent events."

Dorothy considered all of this. After several more minutes of this impenetrable silence her shoulders hitched once, again, and her hands rose to cover her face as if her hair were not a proper veil. She cried softly into her hands and he gently placed an arm around her shoulders. Eventually, still weeping quietly, she rose from the chair and turned to him. "I'll…I can't…" she murmured, and then her voice failed her. She fell into him, crying now as she so rarely did, and he held her. His embrace was loose and awkward but she did not seem to care. She sobbed against him violently, her hands clutching his coat, her tears soaking through his shirt to his chest.

"Why did it have to be like this?" she asked, seeking an answer he could not provide. "Why?"

"I don't know, Dorothy."

"After all we went through, after all we tried to do on Libra, why has it come to this again?"

"I don't know."

"Why couldn't Treize have changed?"

"Dorothy, stop this," he said quietly, and she raised her head from his chest to look up at him.

"Do you realize what we're going to have to do, Milliardo? Do you?"

"Tell me, Dorothy. I don't know anything anymore."

"We're going to have to kill him." She sobbed harder. She was going to make herself sick if she kept crying like this. "No, we're not. I'm not asking you to kill him."

"You don't understand," she cried. "I don't mean murder him. That would be easier than this. We're going to go behind his back and cut his legs out from underneath him. We're going to crush him."

"No, we won't. He's already too strong to be cut down that easily."

"Then why do you want me to petition the Council? Why the counteroffensive?"

"To make it more difficult for him. What he plans to do is wrong, Dorothy, whether you want to see it or not."

"Don't you think I know that?" she sobbed, slamming one ineffective fist into his chest. "I know. I think I've always known. And…" Her words again yielded to the sobs that wracked her frail body, then quietly, once she was able to speak again, she whispered, "I'll do it. If that's what you want, Milliardo, if that's what is needed, I'll do it."

"Thank you, Dorothy."

She said nothing else. Eventually her tears subsided and she backed away from him. She glanced at the sleeping Quatre again, forced a smile. "Quatre used to love her, you know. Your precious Miss Lucrezia Noin. He even told her he did, but she loved you." She smiled again. "He used to love her. Just as I used to love you." She stepped closer to him and before he could do anything to stop her, she brushed her lips against his. Her lips parted slightly and he felt the brief touch of her tongue, and when he did not return the kiss she pulled away. "I'm sorry, Mr. Milliardo. Please understand. He loves me now, and I love him."

"Understood." When she was again fully calmed he asked, "Is there anything you would like to take with you, Dorothy?"

She nodded, almost pitifully in the manner of a scolded child. And was that not what she was now? A child? A beautiful young woman reduced at last to being a mere child by a life enshrouded in tragedy?

He held her again briefly and silently she yielded to his embrace. When at last he released her, she went to the small closet on the opposite side of the room and plucked from the floor a slender black suitcase. He knew, without asking, that she had never bothered, in all the months she had been here, to unpack anything.

She went without speaking to the boy, took one of his hands in her own. Looking up at Zechs she asked quietly, "Would you inform the nurses downstairs that I will be leaving for a few days?"

He nodded and started to leave. He paused for a moment in the doorway, glanced over his shoulder at her.

She was bent over the bed, her face pressed against the side of the boy's as the tears flowed freely from her closed eyes, and she whispered her farewells to him as though she though he could actually hear her.

Zechs realized that despite what pain Dorothy was in now and had been in for the past several months, he was glad for her in that she had finally found something she truly loved, something to fill the void that warfare had left within her. He wondered if he would ever allow himself to feel the same.

He left Dorothy to her tearful farewells and proceeded to the first floor.

**II**

They arrived in the Sanq Kingdom, via the private plane of which Odin had granted him unlimited use for his two missions, shortly after dawn that morning. Dorothy had slept through most of the journey, and watching her, Zechs had realized how desperately she must have needed it. God only knew how much sleep she had been getting while staying in the hospital at the boy's side; he recalled how she had looked, when he had first seen her last night, as though she hadn't slept in days.

Perhaps this was true.

Even after she awoke during the landing and was escorted to the car that would take them to the Imperial Palace she remained utterly silent, solemn as a martyr being led to her death.

It did not strike him until then the chances that something would go wrong when she addressed the Council, that Treize's benefactor would contact the organization or have her arrested, or that perhaps Treize had somehow already discovered their intentions and would resort, when faced with the prospect of losing his financial backing, to desperate measures. He found himself, as he silently endured this epiphany, remembering the guard at the Spanish base, the one who had even then struck him as overly suspicious—

His thoughts were interrupted by Dorothy's quiet, whispery voice.

"What if my petition is not granted, Mr. Milliardo?"

"I doubt Treize will do anything to you," he replied, but did he really? He had never previously believed that Treize would resort to what he had done, what he had so damnably done to Relena, but had not those foolish assumptions proven false?

"Will I need to stay in Sanq?"

He realized then what she had meant. "No. You may return to Morocco immediately following the address."

She seemed content with this response.

The car — arranged, as had been the plane, by Odin — left them at the gates of the palace. He escorted her up the long walkway in perfect silence; indeed the only sound other than their quiet footfalls against the stone walk was the singing of the birds in the trees around the gates, creatures that knew nothing of war or its foul endeavors.

No one, having seen them from a window, awaited them beyond the main entrance. The door shut softly behind them, and this sound carried through the room and out into the corridor, alerting one of the nearby servants to their entrance. "Your Highness," the jovial, plump woman said when she saw him. "I see you have brought us yet another guest."

"Miss Catalonia will only be staying for a few days."

Beside him, Dorothy seemed silently grateful to hear this.

"Miss Noin is still asleep, I think," she continued. "Shall I call her down anyway?"

He shook his head.

"Then shall I call Mr. Rhyn?"

He forced a slight smile. "If Miss Noin is still asleep, I assume he is, too."

"No, Your Highness, Mr. Rhyn woke early this morning and decided to go into the gardens and entertain the birds by singing an aria to them."

"Then please, yes, call him down."

Dorothy looked at him inquisitively.

"Rhyn is a member of the counteroffensive," he explained. "Due to recent circumstances, he is staying here until another arrangement can be found."

As if cued by this remark, Rhyn appeared in the doorway, looking strangely rather solemn until he spotted Dorothy.

"Well, well, well, what have you brought us now, Marquise-love?" His eyes traveled down the length of her figure and widened in feigned shock. "It's blue-eyed! It's blonde! It's female! It has bigger breasts than your sister! What's its name?"

"Rhyn, this is Miss Dorothy Catalonia."

He nodded excitedly. "Odin sent me a message about your little mission, love. Did you enjoy Spain and then Morocco much?" Not waiting for an answer, he looked again at Dorothy and bowed dramatically. "_Me llamo _Rhyn Tolkien."

"I speak English," she said, though not maliciously, as Zechs would have expected her to.

Rhyn graced her with a wide smile. His face had healed considerably over the past weeks and such an expression no longer inspired an inner shudder. "Good, because I don't really know much Spanish. I know a little bit of French, though. Marguerite was teaching me a bit before I was transferred here. No offense, Miss Catalonia, it's not that I don't like Spanish or anything, I just have been told I can't speak it well because apparently some people think I have a bit of a Liverpudlian accent that won't be talked over…I'll shut me mouth now." He looked again at Zechs. "Is she going to be staying here long?"

"Only a few days."

"She can stay in my room then."

Zechs raised an eyebrow. "And where will you stay?"

"In my room."

Dorothy gave a short, quiet laugh at this. _Thank God_.

Pagan appeared a moment later and greeted Dorothy warmly. He offered to show her to her room and she went quietly with him, leaving Zechs alone with the loud Brit.

"Has Relena awakened yet?" he asked finally, assuming Rhyn would know.

Rhyn gave him a puzzled look. "She's not here."

"What?"

"You didn't know? She hasn't come back from wherever the hell it was she went the other day. Is something wrong, love? You look even paler than usual."

Zechs shook his head, and for the first time since he had been summoned to a hospital on Mars, he realized that the feeling that arose in his mind at these words was nothing other than a pure, undiluted fear for her.

_My dear sister, what have I done?_

**Author's Notes: **Zechs re-enters the story with this chapter, thus ending the character studies and resuming the action. At the beginning of the chapter there is another parallel between Zechs and Heero (the odd desire to drown themselves rather than continue their respective missions), as I do believe they really are quite similar in character.

As to why I chose to extend Morocco's borders and place a well-funded hospital there, I have but one explanation: it is purely random. I like the word 'Morocco.' That is, quite honestly, my entire reasoning.

I could find no role for Quatre in Ballad but I also could not find a reason to kill him, so this is why he is in a coma. Also, I think I had plans for him in Remnants. But it's actually been so long since I wrote both Ballad and Remnants that I don't remember whether or not he does anything in Remnants. I also really like the idea of him being paired with Dorothy, if I can't put him with Trowa.

On a final and more serious note, Dorothy's conversation with Zechs is in no way meant to be a political statement regarding euthanasia. Such a thing is a highly personal decision that I think is best left up to the party involved and/or their immediate loved ones. However, my own political standings have nothing to do with this story; Dorothy clings to a hope that he may yet recover, and thus she chooses to maintain the use of machines.

One more final note: yes, I do love those Liverpudlian accents...


	20. Chapter Nineteen

_Chapter Nineteen_

**I**

"Marquise-love?"

Zechs groaned and his eyes began to flutter open. Beside him Lucrezia stirred, while outside Rhyn continued to summon them through the door.

"Come on, Marquise, you said you had to be up early."

He pressed his face into the pillow, trying to drown out the Brit's voice.

A moment later Rhyn burst into the room, stumbling, eyes half-closed and arms extended in a melodramatic tableau of sleepwalking. He jumped up onto the bed and began, in mockery of his own nocturnal habits, to sing loudly, and although his voice, especially at so projected a volume was utterly beautiful, Zechs found himself wishing there were a weapon close at hand.

Rhyn fell onto the bed, nestling in between him and Lucrezia. He threw his arm across Zechs's shoulders and delivered a hard, smacking kiss to his cheek.

"Time to get up, loves," Rhyn said, quietly for once. He gave a more tender kiss to Lucrezia's face and rose from the bed. "If I'm not terribly mistaken you said last night, Marquise-love, that you wanted to be leaving for Luxembourg by dawn, which comes in another hour, by the way, and I'm assuming you've no intention of storming into the Council session wearing what you presently are, though I must admit that you, Miss Noin, look quite delectable wearing Marquise-love's shirt, so you might want to get up now."

Zechs rose from the bed and ushered the boy out of the room, out of the parlor, and back out into the corridor.

"You might want to lock your door this time, love," Rhyn said as he was pushed through the doorway. "Makes it a bit harder for me to burst in, you know."

Zechs merely grunted and shut the door on the boy's smiling face.

**II**

"Miss Dorothy?"

There was no answer on the other side of the door.

He rapped his knuckles against it again, still to no avail.

He turned and was about to leave when behind him the door opened and her face, freshened by a shower and a full night's rest, peered out at him.

"Yes?"

"I'd come to wake you but you're already awake, aren't you?"

"It would appear that way, yes."

"You know, you're much prettier after you've slept. Not to say that you weren't pretty yesterday, love, but you're even more striking without the circles under your eyes and a bit of color in your cheeks."

"Thank you."

"Since you're already up, love, is there anything I can do for you?"

She stepped out into the hall. He studied her face more fully, studied the outfit she had chosen to wear when she interrupted the Council to claim her own power within its ranks. It was quite a semblance to the clothes she had been wearing the previous morning: a simple black blouse atop a simple black skirt, with not the slightest bit of extravagance he knew the Queen would have chosen in her place.

"No offense or anything, Miss, but you look like you're going to a funeral."

"None taken." She stepped closer to him so that he might hear her when she whispered, although there was no one else in the hall with them. "Thank you."

"For what? Complimenting you? Well it's true, love, you look positively ravishing. You're quite a seductress, you are."

"You know what I mean," she said softly.

Indeed he did know. The previous night, after Marquise and Miss Noin had retired to their bedroom, at Miss Dorothy's begrudged request he had found for her some sedatives to aid her sleep.

"No need to thank me," he said, speaking almost as quietly as she was. "It was no problem, really."

She nodded, stepped away from him. "Thank you," she said again, and she disappeared back into her room.

"Very well then," he said in her wake and he left the corridor her room was on, destined now for his own chambers and his own bed, in which he hoped to spend the rest of the pre-noon hours.

**III**

They left the palace as the sun rose over the kingdom, three solemn, almost tragic figures with hands concealed in coat pockets and heads lowered as though they were indeed mourning on their way to the funeral of a dear friend. Pagan waited for them in the black limousine that would take them to the palace's private airport and he, too, seemed as though consumed by some great inner darkness, merely nodding in greeting as they each got into the back of the car.

Zechs slipped his arm about Lucrezia's shoulders after they were settled and the car had departed from the palace's gates. She looked at him strangely for a moment, then offered the weakest of smiles and laid her head against him.

He had not wanted her to come with them, but she had insisted upon it, and he had yielded to her. He at last admitted to himself that in his incessant weakness, he had not truly desired to go without her.

Rhyn had agreed to stay at the palace in the event that Relena should return. Zechs had not told him any of the specifics of what had happened the night of his disappearance after the Queen's own that morning, but it had seemed that he didn't need to. His suspicions were almost fully confirmed that Rhyn knew much more on the subject of the solemn Queen that he freely admitted.

Dorothy sat across from them, eyes closed and hands folded in her lap. Zechs needed not imagine what she must have been thinking as they neared the airport, of how much it must have pained her to go back on her vows to never again enter a war. He knew the feeling all too well himself.

The ride to the port was silent, and likewise in that silence they boarded the plane that would take them to Luxembourg. Dorothy, though she had looked much healthier when he had first seen her that morning, was regaining her former pallor, and several times in the minutes immediately following the plane's takeoff he thought she was going to be sick.

"Are you all right, Miss Dorothy?" Lucrezia asked her finally.

Dorothy glanced up from her clasped hands. "Yes, Miss Noin. I'm fine, thank you."

Despite the thoughts that threatened to break through his defenses as the plane glided northward, thoughts of his sister, of Heero, of a certain scar snaking across his hand, of two gundams that still had yet a battle to finish, Zechs was able to keep his mind blessedly empty throughout the flight.

The plane touched down in Luxembourg sooner than expected, and as it slid down the length of the runway he saw an expression of utter dread upon Dorothy's face. In less than a moment, however, that expression faded into a much harder one, quite like one of her constant expressions from her days as a lover of war.

No one in Luxembourg had been notified that they were coming. They departed from the port without an escort and on foot and needed walk only a few blocks before they reached the grand chateau that served as the headquarters of the Supreme Earthsphere Council.

Dorothy hesitated outside the main entrance.

"Are you certain you want to do this?" he asked, placing a reassuring hand upon her shoulder.

She swallowed and nodded. Zechs himself would never be fully aware of what it was that drove her so adamantly on in this mission she had no desire to engage in, but he would never ask. Her mere presence, her acceptance of the proposal, was enough.

As they proceeded down the grand marble corridor, Zechs's mind was haunted by memories of a grinning soldier and Treize's willingness to do anything to further his organization.

They were at last halted outside of the auditorium, where the Council conducted its sessions. The only clearance they needed, however, was for Dorothy to identify herself, and with almost-awed expressions, the guards allowed them to enter.

The auditorium was enormous and fashioned so elegantly that one would, upon first seeing it, find it hard to believe that it was used as the primary room for hearings conducted by the supreme governing force of the Earth. The wide floor was white marble, smooth as a woman's flesh, and the very architecture of the room was something more suiting of a great Roman cathedral than any governmental facility. Tapestries, images of notable crests, hung from each wall, yet most impressive were the great rows of seats, starting from the floor and not ending until the second level of balconies, all these hundreds of seats almost completely filled with governors, with spectators, with those who would work to decide the Earth's fate.

_It truly is the Romefeller Foundation all over again_, he thought.

The doors had been opened as a speaker, one of the High Councilmen, it appeared from his uniform, was in the middle of some greatly important sentence. He halted upon seeing the three intruders and as his gaze turned to them so did the heads of everyone in the room.

The silence that fell over the auditorium at their entrance was almost palpable.

The Councilman cleared his throat and, almost nervously, straightened his collar. "Honorary Councilwoman Catalonia," he said after a moment, and he offered a cordial smile to the girl who stood before these watchful, silent masses.

Dorothy, with all the nobility of a monarch, nodded.

The Councilman raised a single hand and gestured to her. "Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Honorary Councilwoman Dorothy Catalonia."

There sounded a great, screeching-stamping clamor as seats were pushed back and every man and woman in the room rose to their feet.

Again, Dorothy nodded. "Thank you."

The crowd, one-by-one, resumed their seats. Again the room fell silent, with the exceptions of the nervous coughs uttered all throughout the balconies, until the speaking Councilman gave a hard, brief tap of his gavel to the grand podium at which he stood.

"Have you a matter of business to bring before us, Honorary Councilwoman?"

Dorothy gave no sign of her distress. "I have."

The Councilman turned to address the other members. "Ladies and gentlemen of the Supreme Earthsphere Council, I would like to move that the order of business be turned over to Honorary Councilwoman Catalonia."

There was a unanimous pounding of thirty-nine gavels against the tables, and with another warm smile the Councilman motioned for Dorothy to take his place at the podium. She did so with all the grace and dignity her grandfather, in whose memory she had been given a place in the Council, would have desired to see in her.

Zechs and Lucrezia followed and took two of the seats behind her.

One of the High Council members leaned forward, looking directly at Dorothy. "Honorary Councilwoman, would you, for the record, identify those who have accompanied you on your matter of business?"

"I am accompanied by Prince Milliardo Peacecraft of the Sanq Kingdom and former Captain of the Imperial Guard of the Sanq Kingdom Lucrezia Noin."

"Honorary Councilwoman, what is your matter of business?"

She cleared her throat quietly, hesitated, gripping the sides of the podium. For a moment Zechs thought she was not going to able to bring herself to say it, and in that moment he realized how foolish he had been to place all of this upon her shoulders.

"I have come here," she said finally, her voice conveying nothing of what she felt, "to petition that the Supreme Earthsphere Council withdraw its support of Treize Kushrenada and his army."

A unanimous gasp, like a wave, rolled through the spectators and several members of the Council coughed into their elegantly gloved hands. There was another pounding of a gavel behind them, as the same man who had been speaking earlier ordered silence for Dorothy to speak.

"Honorary Councilwoman, have you gone mad?" one of the others called to her, and, Zechs noted, his shock was too sincere, and he continued to scan their rows, searching for the one who looked as if he knew all too well what the Honorary Councilwoman was speaking of.

"Honorary Councilwoman, explain yourself."

Dorothy straightened her posture and spoke clearly, assuredly, into the microphone. "Treize Kushrenada, my cousin and the nephew of Duke Dermail, is responsible for the production of the mobile suits that were discovered in Austria. He and his army are funded by one of the members of this Council. I petition that this benefactor step forward and withdraw support of him."

"But Treize Kushrenada is dead," one woman called out, and despite the commotion Dorothy maintained her royal composure.

"My cousin did not die in the Eve Wars as was believed," she continued. "He has survived and is responsible for the rising of the army in Germany. I ask that support be withdrawn from him at once."

As if cued by her words, there arose, above the commotion of the crowd gathered in the room, a great, shrill cry, seeming to come from above them, and as the cry grew louder Lucrezia motioned for Zechs to look up at one of the High Councilmen, who, panicked it seemed, had risen to his feet and was trying furiously to push his way through the perplexed masses.

Zechs nodded and drew his gun, and as he fixed it upon the man's moving figure he again was hit by another image of the guard in Spain, the treacherous smile, of how easily that man could have waited for him to leave the base and followed him to his next destination, which, once reported, would have given Treize every reason to believe this would happen…

His finger tightened on the trigger—

The explosion rocked the great building, shaking its foundations as though the very earth was being rent beneath them. The gun was knocked from his hand and he fell back as another explosion sounded, and the walls surrounding the auditorium shook violently, giving way as it was believed almost nothing could make them do.

The screams that echoed throughout the room were disorienting, deafening, and as the crowds pushed against each other in a futile attempt to escape the room while the walls collapsed upon them he was pushed away from Lucrezia.

Another cry, another great, resonating blast. The chandelier on the ceiling overhead quivered, and Zechs rolled out of the way just as it fell to the floor, crushing a man beneath it.

"Lucrezia!"

Whether she heard him or not over the roar of the crowd he didn't know, but likewise he heard no response. He fought through them all, pushing them aside when he needed to as though they were nothing more than rag dolls.

The upper balcony on the eastern wall collapsed. God only knew how many people had been left standing on it, fighting to get off.

He could not think about these things, could hardly see them. He was too disoriented to think of anything but finding her.

At last he did. She was by the podium, half-lying and half-sitting, holding her arms protectively over her abdomen as others, without even truly being aware that she was there, all but trampled her.

"Lucrezia!"

Her half-conscious eyes rolled toward him and she tried to get to her feet. He reached her finally, pulled her up from the floor only to see that she was on the verge of passing out.

Something warm ran down her neck onto his hand. He saw but his mind did not register that she was bleeding, perhaps from some injury to the head as the ceiling even now continued to collapse in upon them all.

"Where's Dorothy?" she asked, struggling to maintain consciousness. She pulled away from him, only barely able to stand on her own. "Where is she?"

Zechs surveyed the room while holding onto her arm with one hand, and finally spotted her almost ten yards away from the podium, where she had been before the blast.

She was not moving.

He pulled Lucrezia with him as he fought to get to her, hoping, praying against all hope that she was not dead, that she wasn't going to die for this cause she wanted nothing to do with.

Her body was limp when he found her and her eyes were mercifully closed, but she was alive still.

"We've got to get her out of here," he said, too monotonously, to Lucrezia.

She nodded and through her own disorientation seemed to understand what he meant. They could not remain here, to struggle through the exits with the others. Treize would not be content with merely destroying the place and hoping they were killed in the assault; if they were not gone from here soon, they would be apprehended by his own officers. Lucrezia cursed under her breath, recognizing the futility of what they needed to do, as the crowd was pushed back from the doors by a battalion of men, armed soldiers wearing the uniforms of Treize's organization.

Zechs lifted Dorothy's limp body from the floor and fled with her, guiding Lucrezia at his side, toward a chasm where a wall had once been that revealed the light outside.

The officers, without hesitation to confirm that these people were indeed those they had been sent to find, followed after them.

**IV**

Rhyn waited a few minutes after sending the third message of the evening to Marguerite, knowing that if she were currently using her computer — which she almost always was — she would reply immediately. This had been their sole form of communication for the past six months.

When ten minutes had passed and still there had been no response, he shut down the computer and left the room.

The halls, he found, were dark and quiet. He first went to Marquise's room, listened outside the door. He heard nothing on the other side. He hadn't expected to, not yet.

On another corridor, he stopped again outside the entrance of Relena's royal suite. Nothing there, either.

He journeyed down to the first floor, looking for nothing, thinking of nothing. For a while he merely wondered why he had come down here, not realizing until now how very tired he was. He was about to give in to the British voice of reason and return to his warm, tempting, albeit empty bed when, as he passed by the grand ballroom, two hands shot out of the softly-lit room and, clutching his arm, pulled him through the doorway.

"Your Majesty?"

"I'm sorry," she said, still grasping his arm so tightly that it sent a harp ache all the way up into his shoulder. "I'm sorry. It's just that I…that I…"

Awakened now, he guided her to sit in a chair by the nearest corner. She mumbled incoherently for several minutes, her fingers rending the skirt of the dress she wore, the same dress, he realized, she had been wearing when she disappeared two days ago.

He was finally able to calm her. She collapsed against the chair, sobbing tearlessly, and allowed him to take both her hands into his.

"Milliardo," she said finally, staring at him with wild, almost frightened eyes. "Is my brother here?"

He shook his head. "No. He left this morning with Miss Noin and Miss Catalonia for Luxembourg."

Her eyes widened. "Dorothy? Luxembourg? I don't understand."

"He arrived here last night with Miss Catalonia. They left to cause a commotion with the Council right after breakfast. Miss Catalonia's quite a cute one, you know."

"The Council?"

"You're about five seconds behind me, love. The Supreme Earthsphere Council called an emergency session the day after you left, Your Majesty. They're still debating to my knowledge. Your brother and your brother's impregnated lover and your brother's cute little childhood-friend-slash-former-comrade have gone to interrupt. But considering the time, they've probably already done their interrupting, I suppose."

She sighed and slumped against the arm of the chair. Her eyes drifted down to her torn, dirty dress and she seemed only now to realize her disheveled appearance. She gave a small, disgusted cry and leapt from the chair.

He rose with her, linked his arm gently through hers. "I'll escort you to your chambers, Your Majesty."

She allowed him to do so, and at her door she asked him to come in.

"I can't, Your Majesty. You need your rest."

"I've no intention of resting yet," she said, and she pulled him through the doorway, guiding him through her rooms until she reached her royal bedroom, where she made him sit upon the edge of her bed. "Please, stay here. I need to talk to you but…stay here."

He gave a dumb nod and she disappeared into an adjacent room.

Rhyn doubted he had ever felt so confused in all his life.

No, that wasn't true, not entirely, he realized, thinking of the scars on Marguerite's wrists, thinking of how happy she had seemed just before she had tried to take her own life. He had been so much more confused then.

The memory of it, the barest mental glimpse of her, her arms drenched and stained with blood, made him shudder.

The Queen reappeared in the wide doorway. She was much calmer than she had been before, no longer trembling or sobbing, and her face had been washed, her hair brushed and pulled back. She had changed out of her ruined white dress and into a black evening gown, and her usually gloved hands were bare, delicately white and elegant, as those of a Queen should be.

"I couldn't let Milliardo see me like this," she explained, walking toward him. The gown pulled tight against her hips as she moved in a way that he couldn't help but notice. "In case he returns this evening, I couldn't let him see that…couldn't let him know…I couldn't…"

"It's okay, Your Majesty," he said, making a point not to look at anything below her shoulders. Was she consciously aware of what she was wearing, of how she was walking in it? "I understand."

She raised an eyebrow. "Do you?" She at last reached him and he looked up into her eyes. "Did my brother say anything to you?" she asked carefully, almost timidly. "Did he tell you what happened?"

"No. He didn't tell me that he found out about you and Treize, no."

Her eyes widened into the same expression they had held before and she took a step back. "Then how do you–" She fell onto the bed beside him.

He gave her a sympathetic smile. "Because it's the only thing that could've upset him enough to make him leave without explanation like he did and upset you enough to make you come back like this."

A large tear rolled down her cheek. He brushed it away and chastely kissed the side of her face. "Just so you'll know, Your Majesty-love, I won't say I told you so."

She allowed her eyes to meet his and after a moment she gave a weak smile. "It can't be helped, can it? There's nothing I can…nothing I can do to change any of it, is there?"

He evaded her question. She moved closer to him, and as she moved he caught the scent of some sweet perfume that he had never before noticed her wearing.

"I'm sorry," she murmured quietly. Her eyes watered again. "God, I am so sorry."

He placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Not only for this, but for…" She offered him a slight smile. "I'm sorry the way I've treated you. You are a guest in my house, and a friend of my brother and I as your hostess have given you nothing but hostility."

"It's understandable."

"I never meant to treat you so horribly," she continued. "It was only that…you understand, don't you?"

"Of course I do, Majesty-love."

"Thank you," she whispered. She fell suddenly against him.

"Your Majesty? What's wr–"

She silenced him with a kiss.

She pulled away from him, smiled sweetly. Had she truly lost her mind?

"I'm sorry," she said again, brushing her lips against his. "Please accept…this apology."

She kissed him again, pushing him down upon the bed, covering his mouth with hers as he tried to protest. Her hips moved against his in a way he would never have thought her capable of, and, laughing softly, her lips traveled down onto his neck.

"Your Majesty, stop this."

She paid no attention to him. Her kiss became harder, more demanding, and her hands, delicate and seemingly frail, pinned him down to the bed in such a way that he would have to hurt her to make her release him.

"Your Majesty–"

"Don't speak," she whispered, holding him down while her other hand began to work at unbuttoning his shirt.

"I can't…I won't do this, Your Majesty."

She again forced her lips against his.

"Relena!"

He at last shoved her away and she stumbled into the corner, looking disappointed and injured and yet still desirous. Had she truly lost her mind?

She started to rise from the floor, faltered in her steps. She mumbled another useless apology and the moment the words had left her lips, her eyes rolled up into her head and she collapsed.

Rhyn cursed under his breath and picked her up from the floor, laying her gently atop the bed. He could only pray she had recovered from whatever it was that had possessed her to do this by the time she awakened.

He left the room, easing the door shut behind him, and proceeded down to the first floor, stepping off from the grand staircase in time to collide with a frantic Marquise.

"You're back," he said, barely able to breathe from the collision, as he studied Marquise's narrowed eyes and his bruised face. "What the bleeding hell happened?"

"We have to leave," he said, calmly yet harshly, and before Rhyn could react Marquise grabbed his wrist and pulled him down the corridor, into the grand ballroom. "We didn't lose them until we reached the plane, and Treize will be sending them here soon."

"Who?"

Marquise didn't answer. Rhyn looked across the room and saw Miss Noin and Miss Dorothy, the former as bruised as Marquise and the latter barely conscious, held up only with Miss Noin's support.

And suddenly, without receiving the slightest explanation, he understood what had happened.

"Is the car still parked out front?" he asked, and Miss Noin nodded. "Leave Miss Dorothy here."

Marquise flashed him an angry look.

"We can't take her!" he shouted into the Prince's stoic face. "She's useless to us."

"But–"

"She's much safer here. We're leaving her."

Without further protest, Miss Noin carried Dorothy to the nearest chair and set her in it, and as if an actor responding to a cue, Pagan went to her.

"We'll have to go south, to Vólos," Rhyn yelled over the clattering sound of their footsteps as the three of them fled toward the waiting car, and in front of him Marquise responded with a nod.

Marquise started to get in the driver's seat but Rhyn pushed in front of him, motioning for him to join Miss Noin in the back. "Not this time, love," he said, assuming that seat and slamming the door behind him. He started the car and guided it away from the gates. "I can get us there quicker than you, Marquise-love, and with all due respect, I know these officers and what they're willing to do much better than you." He applied the accelerator and the car gave a satisfying response. "And whatever happens, loves, regardless of what specifically, stay in the fucking car."

**V**

_(The Devil and the Angel, Part II)_

They reached Vólos without incident, though deep within her heart Lucrezia had a feeling that they had only narrowly averted one. Rhyn was not informed fully of what had happened in Luxembourg until after they had met with Odin within the deep recesses of the base, but Odin needed no explanation, having already heard the public announcement of the assault on the Council, which had not reached this region of Europe until the past hour, and when his questions became too many Odin held up a hand and said, "The technical crew from Spain arrived today."

Rhyn, even in his curiosity, halted. "All of them?"

Odin nodded. "Yes, Marguerite is among them. I've given her your chambers, if that pleases you."

Rhyn's boyish face broke out into a wide smile. "Of course it pleases me, Odin-love, and now if you don't mind terribly, I'm off to go please somebody else, we haven't seen each other in six months, you know, and…" His voice trailed off into a series of incoherent echoes as he ran down the subterranean corridors.

Lucrezia looked up at Odin, who had only minutes ago given to her and Zechs this set of rooms, without grudge or hesitation. Already Zechs had drifted into sleep by her side, and absently she stroked his hair as it veiled from her eyes his ethereal face.

_An angel at her side, the devil watching from across the room. _

"I never got a chance to thank you," she said to Odin finally, "for what you did for him."

"Don't thank me, Miss Noin. I did it partly out of concern for myself as well as for the Prince."

"But still–"

He silenced her with a wave of his hand. "I said there was no need to thank me."

She nodded and returned her gaze to Zechs, her beautiful, beautiful sleeping angel.

"He will be needed soon," Odin said as he rose from the chair to take his leave, gesturing toward Zechs.

"What do you mean?"

"Due to what occurred in Luxembourg, the first true phase of this war will transpire much sooner than we had anticipated." He opened the door, paused before exiting. "When you awake tomorrow, Miss Noin, there are several good physicians here, if you're concerned about the child."

She flashed him an incredulous look, and before she could ask the devil smiled and said, "Goodnight, Baroness," and with this startling closing he disappeared.

**VI**

Odin was proven right in his theory that the next stage of the battle would begin soon. The war officially, to the public, began two days later, when Treize Kushrenada's army began its ascent to glory and Treize his rise to power.

_Amazed to find it could rejoice, Hell raised a hoarse, half-human cheer._

**Author's Notes:** This may be my least favorite chapter of Ballad. I'm very bad at writing action scenes, I feel, and the pivotal scene of this chapter is an action scene. In this regard, I rather envy those professional graphic artists who can have their assistants draw some of their more difficult scenes: I would _love_ to have someone write my action-steeped chapters for me. Whenever I write action scenes, they always come out too short and too undetailed.

Relena makes her brief return in this chapter. As an explanation for her odd, uncharacteristic behavior toward Rhyn, suffice it to say that at the time, she is not entirely sober. (Although it should perhaps be noted that I personally do not feel such behaviors are so out of character for Relena at this age, but then again, I do have a rather low opinion of her.)

As for the last line of this chapter, after careful consideration I did decide to end it with a line from the Davidson poem that is quoted throughout this story and after which this story is named. This is the final chapter of Part II; in the next part, the entire poem is quoted at last.


	21. Chapter Twenty

_A Ballad of War: Toccata and Fugue, Part II_

_Chapter Twenty_

**I**

In spite of all that had transpired within the two years that Treize Kushrenada had been presumed dead and Odin Lowe had resurfaced, the world would not believe that war had been declared upon the Earth until the attack on the Supreme Earthsphere Council. The attack led to an unvoiced acceptance of failure within the Prevention Organization and many of its members, despite their former convictions, returned, as had their President a month before, to the base on the Mars colony. President Une had, for the first time since her disappearance, issued a brief statement to the press, but in light of the events on Earth, nothing was made of it.

The casualties of the attack on the conferences in Luxembourg were being calculated even before the smoke cleared over the rubble, and the day following the attack, the press released the first estimated numbers to the people of Earth and the colonies. Of the twenty highest members of the Council, fourteen were believed to be dead, the other six critically injured. It would be confirmed later, by a member of the counteroffensive begun by Odin Lowe at the beginning of the year AC 196, that in the course of this attack, Treize had managed to inadvertently kill the man who had served for that same amount of time as his benefactor.

Also at the time of this confirmation, it was learned that the benefactor had been the formerly pacifistic Alsirae Trecais III, who had, in the final year of the OZ organization, renounced his position and earned the title of General under Treize's leadership.

Of the twenty secondary members of the Council, nine were confirmed dead, ten seriously injured, and one, miraculously, not hurt at all. Of the lesser governmental leaders who had attended the conference that day, thirty-six had been killed during the attack, and several others had died during transportation to a medical facility. Twenty-seven spectators had also died.

These were, however, only estimates released the day following the assault, while the world still looked on in utter horror. The numbers would be higher the following week, after the debris had been thoroughly searched and a few more of the injured had died in their respective hospitals.

Among the names of those who believed to be dead but whose deaths could not be confirmed was that of Prince Milliardo Peacecraft of the Sanq Kingdom.

The Imperial Palace of the kingdom was searched by both a governmental agency employed by what had formerly been the Supreme Earthsphere Council, and, though this would never be confirmed, a unit of officers serving under Treize Kushrenada's clandestine organization. The Prince was indeed missing, as even an interrogation of his emotionally weakened sister yielded no evidence of his whereabouts other than that he had been in Luxembourg during the attack. Gone, too, was Lucrezia Noin, whose name had been added to the list of possible casualties. The only thing found amiss in the palace was the inexplicable presence of Dorothy Catalonia. It was confirmed that she had been in Luxembourg as well, escorted there by the Prince himself and the pregnant Miss Noin, but the method of her return to Newport was less plausible; it was claimed that a private plane, one of the Queen's own, had been sent for her immediately following news of the attack, though no officials at any port in Luxembourg had record of this happening. The only result yielded by the search of the palace and the interrogation of its distraught Queen had come not from the inquisition performed by the governmental agency but rather that performed by Treize's own soldiers. The question was raised of whether or not the Queen, or to her knowledge her brother, had had any contact within the past month with one Rhyn Tolkien, formerly of the United Kingdom. The Queen had at first been startled by the mention of his name but had claimed no knowledge of him. Her initial reaction, however, had answered their question sufficiently.

The final question asked of her by the officers unaffiliated with the organization had been whether or not the Queen had had any prior knowledge of those responsible for what had happened in Luxembourg. Her response was an adamant negative.

After the assault on Luxembourg, the two organizations wasted no time in at last bringing into being the true war that had been in the making since the last great one.

Two days after the assault came the entrance of mobile suits into the grand scheme. A battalion of suits of a new model, the same one that had been discovered in Austria, a seeming year ago, entered the great city of Istanbul at dawn, and by the time the day yielded to evening, the city had fallen.

The identity of this organization's leader was at last revealed when, as the announcement of the seizure of Istanbul was broadcast across the civilized world, Treize Kushrenada emerged in the city to lay claim to it.

The smile that illuminated his face as he delivered his grand speech was one that not even those subordinates closest to him could comprehend.

"And so again falls Constantinople," Odin Lowe remarked as the others in the room watched the events in perfect horror, as though he were untouched by what was happening.

The counteroffensive, which had begun to come into the public eye after Luxembourg, made its own move in the week after the seizure of Istanbul. Two large units of Sagittarius suits — some of which the infamous Rhyn Tolkien had kissed farewell before allowing their designated pilots to enter them — were dispatched from Vólos, within the same day, one sent to Istanbul and the other northward by air to Germany.

Thus the true war began; or, rather, what was labeled a true war by the those whose stood outside the lines of fire, those who could only fear and observe but not act, those who formed their conceptions of this war on the number of casualties and the carnage left in the wake of each battle. This theory, while well-founded for men who could not truly touch anything in such a conflict, was rarely true. In the words of the instigator of this great battle, everything was a war. Perhaps this had never been as fully known as it was to the soldiers who would survive this conflict. The real war was not consistent of battles and weapons, of sieges and assaults and the estimated casualties that were released to the public; the real war was everything behind those things. It was a soldier called to fight once more while resisting his soul's desire to turn away. It was a young man lured in by idealism, a young man who would die in that idealism never really knowing truthfully what it was they were asked to fight for. It was a girl who had quite literally lost her mind long ago who acted as an operative for any army; it was the soldier, one of her own comrades, who learned of her insanity only in the moments before she killed him. It was a pacifist Prince wanting to die for his desire to fight; it was a Queen driven to her wits' end by powers she could not touch. It was a boy with no memories and yet at the same time too many; it was an assassin nearing the time he would become obsolete. It was a military leader preparing for his own death. It was an ancient dead peace and an unvoiced conflict within the souls of all those who would have a hand in orchestrating these events.

This was the true war, as no news cast or history book or petty speech would ever proclaim it. This — _everything _— was a war, masked underneath the formalities of faceless irrelevant murders and the trite destruction.

Indeed, everything.

As a desperate step in averting the major war that Treize intended to launch upon the world, following the siege of Istanbul the counteroffensive launched an assault on the base in Thessaloníki. The manpower of the counteroffensive was considerably less than that of Treize's army, but with the temporary stationing of many of the Gemini suits in Istanbul, the assault on the base was successful. The base was almost completely destroyed and an evacuation order was issued by Treize, who without explanation left Istanbul immediately after giving the order for an unknown destination. In his absence, new commanders were established to guide his armies, and his soldiers under such guidance entered a skirmish with those of the counteroffensive on the borders of the city.

In response, the following evening the Sanq Kingdom was invaded.

And shortly after this, almost as quickly s this war had begun, it was ended.

**II**

_(The Lost Soldier, Returning To A War)_

He held her now as she slept placidly against him, her head resting over his abdomen, her slender body draped over his legs like a blanket. Her red hair veiled his arms as they rested over her back, his fingers absently stroking the curve of her spine, and every so often he leaned forward, carefully as not to wake her, and laid his own head in the smooth crimson mass of it, where he could feel the warmth of her breath against the side of his face, could see her unmoving lips parted in sleep and fight the urge to kiss her.

She stirred briefly. He did not know how long she had been asleep, nor had he an estimate of when she might awaken. He hoped she wouldn't for a while, though. It would be so much easier to leave her if she were asleep.

He bent down, kissed the arch of her high cheekbones, the lobe of her ear.

"I've missed you, Marguerite," he whispered, as though she could hear him through whatever dreams kept her from having to witness his departure, and then as though she had denied this he continued. "No, really I have. I never stopped thinking about you. I even asked Odin to have me transferred back to Spain, but he said he'd be sending you here soon enough."

If indeed she could hear him, she gave no sign of it.

He kissed her again and leaned back against the sofa. Marquise had passed by this room earlier and had stopped momentarily in the doorway, studying him and the woman who lay gracefully over him. After a moment he smiled, nodded, and left.

He thought Marquise was at last beginning to understand him.

A glimmer of silver caught his eye and he repressed a scowl as he looked at the two bracelets lying beside him. God, but he hated them.

Marguerite was well aware of this, and because of it she always removed them when he was with her.

Odin appeared in the doorway, silently gestured to Rhyn that it was time for his departure. He nodded and mouthed and that he would be there in a minute.

Odin stepped inside the room. "I'm not sending you to Thessaloníki," he said quietly.

Rhyn raised an eyebrow.

"You're going to the Sanq Kingdom. The situation there has worsened."

He glanced down at Marguerite, smoothed her hair away from her face. "What are our casualties?"

"Nineteen have been lost in the Sanq Kingdom. More were lost in Istanbul."

"Not that bad, really. Of course I suppose I'll be a bigger target, seeing that the fearless Kushrenada has already ordered my death twice or once or perhaps thrice in the past."

Odin nodded. "That's a given, yes."

He, considering this, kissed her once more and gently eased her off of him and onto the sofa. "I've got to go now," he whispered to her. "Ta-ra, lovely."

He rose and left, escorted by Odin to what could possibly (and probably would) be his death.

He did not see, as he turned to leave, the single tear rolling down her face.

**III**

_(The Prince, waiting upon the Baroness and in Observation of a Nearing Death)_

"What is he doing?" Zechs asked, calmly, quietly, making a slight gesture at the screaming boy as he again kicked at the machine.

Odin spared him a glance. "He's attacking his mobile suit."

As if to confirm this, Rhyn launched himself at the titanium foot of the suit again.

Zechs looked away from the spectacle. "He's leaving today, then."

Odin nodded. "I have no choice but to send him. Our losses are becoming greater than expected."

"Will the Epyon truly be needed?"

Odin continued to watch the outraged boy. "Yes. You and Heero and your gundams will be needed in the final battle."

Zechs nodded, and as he considered this reply he was moved to say something, something he would not, for several days yet, understand himself.

_The final battle, already planned out. _

"You know more about what Treize is doing than you allow them all to believe, don't you?"

Odin did not even flinch. "I believe you can decide that for yourself, Prince."

Rhyn let out a great incoherent yell and ran at the suit and when the impact of it caused him to fall back onto the pavement, he raised a hand with an extended middle finger and shouted, "Same to you, you bleeding bitch!"

"He'll need to leave soon," Odin said. "He wanted to be in the air by the time Marguerite wakes."

"Where are you sending him?"

"To your kingdom, Prince. He's most needed there."

"He's only a computer analyst."

"And an accomplished soldier."

An officer appeared on the platform, another. One took hold of the British boy while the other climbed into the suit to load it into the carrier.

"You're a damned piece of shite, you are!" he yelled as he was dragged toward the plane.

"What are the chances he'll make it out of this battle?" Zechs asked, fearing he already knew the answer.

"Quite slim." His answer was too grave, too solemn. Zechs realized that Odin truly did not believe the Brit was going to return from the kingdom, not alive, at least.

He watched the boy's struggle a moment longer, then turned and left the platform.

**IV**

_(The Fallen Queen and the Mistress of Virtue)_

She was interrupted in the fervent writing of another letter pleading him to cease what he was doing, another letter that would go unheeded, by a knocking on the door of her study. For reasons she herself was not fully aware of, she tried to ignore it, and for a few minutes was successful. The knocking became louder and, after finally hearing the person on the other side cease their knocking and deliver a hard slap to the door, she put the letter aside and allowed them to enter.

Dorothy bowed and offered a cursory smile. "Good afternoon, Miss Relena. Am I disturbing you?"

Relena glanced toward the letter, assuring herself that it was not obvious under the lamplight. "No, Dorothy."

Dorothy nodded. "I won't keep you long, Miss Relena. I've only come to thank you for allowing me to stay here."

"Are you leaving, Dorothy?"

"Yes, Miss Relena."

"But where are you going?"

Dorothy maintained her calm composure. "I'm returning to Morocco. I'm no longer of use here."

"But–"

"I am well aware of the decree against air travel, Miss Relena, but I'm sure you are well that there are a few who have no intentions of following it. I have already made the arrangement."

"But if something should happen–"

Dorothy silenced her with a wave of her hand. "Then I will not be your responsibility, Miss Relena."

Without hesitation for a response, she turned and left, bowing again outside the doorway.

Relena stared after her a moment longer, then, as though this mattered not at all to her, she returned to her desk, to her damnable letter, her own condemnation.

**V**

_(The Lost Girl, no longer in Possession of her Mind, upon having made a Certain Discovery)_

She laughed softly to herself and shut down the computer. With the monitor dead and black the surrounding darkness enveloped her, yet she sat there silently for a moment, licking her full lips and in contemplation pursing them.

"Well, Mr. Yuy," she whispered, unaware that her voice was like that of a hissing serpent, of a deceitful temptress. She smiled and again punctuated this with a laugh. "I see you've decided to join us."

One of the others who had been assigned to watch designated harbors between Spain and Thessaloníki and who, likewise, was aware of her own assignment in regard to the boy had reported directly to her that the one masquerading under the name Heero Yuy had been spotted while temporarily docking a boat (albeit a stolen vessel) in an Italian port. Though travel by air had been restricted, had he been going directly to Odin Lowe and his counteroffensive he would not have taken such an anonymous method of travel, nor would he have allowed himself to be seen in a locale that should have been known to him as monitored by the organization. He had meant for one of them to see him.

He would be coming to Thessaloníki within the next few days, and there was only port she believed he would use. He would be looking for her there. Perhaps he had decided he did indeed desire another encounter with her after what had happened to him in Spain.

Aphrodite rose from the chair, left the room wearing the long, extravagant black silken robe, and ascended to the third floor, where her own private rooms were located. She went to her vast wardrobe and selected from it, after several minutes of meticulous scrutiny, the perfect outfit to meet him in.

"I do hope you like this one, Mr. Yuy," she whispered. "I do hope you like me in it. It's going to be my funeral dress, you know."

She smiled again as, to her own ears, she heard him give a response.

**VI**

_(The Assassin, departed from the Blossom)_

He left Marquise and the Baroness, left the remaining soldiers who waited to be sent to the front lines, left even Yuan-Chen for several hours that afternoon, and none of those who saw him leave would ever know of his destination, but neither did they question it. He assumed they all knew better than to do something so futile.

No pictures of the woman accompanied him on his brief sabbatical, but nonetheless his solitary thoughts remained on her. Always, always on her. He wondered if, in the events of the final stage of this war, he would at last be joining her.

**VII**

_(The General, a living Corpse of unwritten Epitaphs)_

Amongst the ruins of the base he sat, calm and solitary, imagining the former grandeur of the place. He felt strangely saddened by the knowledge that he would never see it returned to that glory.

None of his army knew where he was, or where to reach him. This was just as he had intended. No more decisions regarding these trivial battles would be made on his part.

Treize ran his fingertips over the marble floor, scarring the coat of ashes and dusted plaster that had covered the remains during the attack. Under the fine gray powder, his fingers appeared as those of a corpse.

He hoped those left in command of his army would indeed make the proper decisions as the battle progressed. He had recently at long last made the one that had so weighed upon his mind, and the relief he felt at knowing this was something of a blessing, despite what it would now entail.

Farther down the hall, traveling merely on echoes, came the high, shrill sound of a laugh devoid of reason, devoid even of sanity. The sound, though unexpected, did not startle him. He recognized it immediately as that of Aphrodite, and although he had ordered all those stationed in Thessaloníki to evacuate this base, he had known since his own return there that she had ignored this decree.

He was not afraid of her presence there. She was truly, by definition of the word, insane, and he had always known this, even before she had begun to display evidence of it before him, and just as well he knew what she was capable of doing. He knew of her delusions, of her violence; he knew of those poor, ignorant soldiers whom she had, believing her acts to be in total secrecy, killed. He at the same time also knew that she would not attempt similar on him, were their paths to cross in what remained of the grand base. Her violent intentions did not and never had included him. Perhaps this was because he sheltered her; perhaps it was simply because, even as far gone as she now was, she still experienced those rare moments in which she realized what she had become and was aware that he knew as well. Whatever the reason, though, she would not harm him.

Her sweet death, he suspected, was as near as his own. He had a feeling that she, too, was well aware of this. Perhaps this accounted for how much lighter of mood she had been since her return. If this were the case, then by all means, let it begin.

He was quickly tiring of all these mundane war games.

Please, God, let it begin.

**VIII**

_(Of Deaths and Goddesses)_

The following evening was perhaps the worst the counteroffensive would see. The battle on the borders of the Sanq Kingdom continued to rage on in the north and the number of casualties was quickly mounting, and in the evening following Rhyn's departure for the battle, the first bodies were sent to Vólos.

Among their last numbers was the body of Rhyn Tolkien, sent so late because it had taken a group of his comrades over an hour to recover his body from the wreckage of his mobile suit's cockpit.

Upon hearing the boy's name among the list of casualties, without waiting to hear it confirmed by either Odin Lowe or Xing Yuan-Chen, Marguerite St. Domingue retreated at a panicked run to the room they had so briefly shared. The tears, so futile, so damnably useless now, flowed freely as she rummaged furiously through all that she had brought from Spain with her until she found a simple folded letter, and clutching this, unfolding it and reading the four words over and over, she unconsciously found herself wishing she had died two years ago, that she had made the cuts down her wrists just a few moments sooner so that by the time he had found her it would have been too late.

_You are my goddess._

These were the first words that had ever transpired between them, more than three years ago now, before they had been called into this conflict, when she had still been singing in a Paris theatre and he a rather well-known tenor and actor among the important circles in England. The current cast of a certain theatre in London had been sent to observe the theatre of France, and despite how nervous she had been that first night Marguerite had given one of the best performances she would ever give, and after the curtain had fallen, while removing her makeup backstage, she was given a letter from an usher, who said one of the London players had instructed him to give it to her. She had opened it to find only these four words elegantly written there, with not even a signature or initials at the bottom. The identity of the sender had not remained a mystery for long, however, as only a few minutes later Rhyn had appeared outside her dressing room door.

He had remained in Paris after the rest of his fellow English actors returned to London, and thus had begun his career there, and thus had begun their friendship, which had only been something more than that since shortly after her damnably failed attempt to end her life. And what good were these memories to her now?

Perhaps Mademoiselle Magdalena Marguerite Gabrielle d'Anton de St. Domingue suffered the most of all those who had remained in Vólos that night; perhaps she did not. None of the tears shed in those hours were powerful enough to halt the world in its revolution, and yet futile as they each might have been, it was in those hours that Hell's jubilant-hissing cheer rang loudest.

**Author's Notes:** Yes, this is a rather short chapter, but I've always been a little fond of it, despite how poorly written it is. The short little pieces with each character were a nice change from the thirty-page character studies. Treize's infamous benefactor is gotten rid of so quickly simply because I needed him only for a short time, and after the previous chapter, he serves no use. I'm sure most people realized that the reference to a girl killing someone is an allusion to Aphrodite.

I've been rather surprised at some of the responses to Rhyn attacking his mobile suit. People seem to like that scene for whatever reason. There's a huge hint as to what happens in the next chapters concerning Marguerite in this scene.


	22. Chapter Twenty One

_Chapter Twenty One_

**I**

"Mission accepted."

He leapt over the side of the boat onto the shore, not bothering to restrain or anchor it. The tide was rather low this evening, nowhere near strong enough to carry it back out to sea, and even if it did, it wouldn't matter. He wouldn't be needing it anymore.

Odin had told him he would be needed in Vólos by the end of the week and he would have arrived in Greece sooner than tonight, but all air travel on the south of the European continent had been restricted. To the public this had seemed an attempt at limiting civilian casualties, which it was on some level, but it was also a method of preventing more soldiers from reaching the battleground, with more mobile suits. It was a good attempt, Heero supposed, but it had come too late. All the necessary weapons had been transported to their respective areas prior to the invasion of the Sanq Kingdom.

The simplest solution for him, at the time, had been to travel by sea, and the counteroffensive's Spain base was conveniently located for such an endeavor. The owners of the boat he had taken had many others. It wasn't likely they would miss this one.

He left the shore and crossed the harbor, passing a dozen other empty boats on the way. If need arose while he was still in the vicinity, any one of them would provide sufficient means of escape.

He would have to proceed to his destination on foot. This would be more time-consuming, of course, but at the same time it would make it easier for him to discern whether or not he was being followed.

When he had gone only a mile from the marina, it became apparent to him that he was being followed. He gave no sign that he noticed, no sign other than the quiet cocking of his gun. Out of the corners of his eyes he surveyed the land around him as he walked, and twice since he drew the gun he saw something move that could be nothing other than another person.

A few miles further, the road he followed joined with a larger one, and across the wide intersection lay a vast hospital complex, like a great brick fortress. Such places had never held any pleasant associations for him, but if he wanted to lose his pursuer, this certainly provided the opportunity.

He crossed the intersection and entered the hospital's parking lot, which he crossed just as hastily. There were too many lights there, coming both from the security lamps and the windows of the complex itself. It would be nothing less than idiotic if he were to be gunned down in a lighted parking lot like a complete fool with an unfired gun in his hand.

He crept along the complex's walls, trying to remain in the shadows as much as possible. Just as he was about to round a corner the adjacent doors opened and a group of people, a large family it seemed, walked out, chattering quickly and happily as though they hadn't just been inside a morgue-in-waiting. He stopped and lowered his gun, and waited for them to leave.

He was about to resume when the payphone on the opposite wall rang, crying shrilly like a wraith in the night. He merely stared at its as though it were a hissing serpent for a moment, then, looking back cautiously over his shoulder, he went to it. He answered it mid-ring with a simple "Hn."

"You never mentioned stopping at the peninsula, Takeru," Odin's voice said. "On your way to Thessaloníki, I presume."

"How did you know where I was."

"One of my associates works in the hospital you're standing outside of at the moment. I believe you met him once, for he was once stationed at the Spain base and he remembers your face quite well. He caught a glimpse of you on the security monitor and called to inform me of it."

"Hn."

"Look up and to your left, Takeru."

Heero did, and in the shadows he saw the barest gleam of the lens of a security camera.

"You were standing in front of that the entire time," Odin informed him. "You would have done quite better if you had interrupted that quaint family gathering."

"What do you want."

Odin gave a short laugh. "Only to warn you, Takeru."

"To warn me against what."

"There are still some matters being taken care of in Thessaloníki," Odin said. "Do not interfere with them. They do not involve you."'

"What are you talking about."

"As I said, it would defeat the entire point."

Heero didn't reply.

"Will you be coming here to visit your friend tonight?"

"Wing Zero, you mean."

"Of course. It arrived yesterday."

The Wing Zero too had been transported to Greece by boat, and taken immediately and discreetly to Vólos.

"No," Heero replied, and unconsciously looked over his shoulder. "I'm being followed."

"So soon? I trust you are able to handle the situation without assistance."

"Yeah."

"But I will advise you to exercise caution. Yuan-Chen isn't expected to arrive until tomorrow."

He grunted and repressed a scowl.

"Do not interfere, Takeru," Odin said, and hung up.

Heero dropped the phone back onto its cradle. The night was again quiet, saved from complete silence by the sounds from the nearby road and from within the building. The sounds of dying men, perhaps.

He tucked his gun back into the waist of his pants and turned the corner of the complex's main building. There was still no visible sign of his pursuer, but he could sense that they had gotten closer to him while he was distracted by Odin, much closer than they should have been allowed.

If he merely went around the complex and changed course from there, he would undoubtedly be seen. That left him with no other choice than to cut through the hospital.

He ducked through the main entrance. Immediately he was assaulted by the very essence of a medical facility: the scent of death and of antiseptics, the ringing of telephones, the incoherent murmur of doctors' voices, the shrill _whish_ of gurneys being rolled past him and the groans of the weak and the diseased and the dying. A war zone contained completely within brick walls. It was a concept he thought Relena might enjoy.

He stepped out of view of the doorway, waited to see if his pursuer intended on following him into the facility. When enough time had passed and no one else entered, he proceeded onward.

He was not entirely too conspicuous. His favorite attire had been cast off for a white button-up shirt and a pair of black pants, which looked far more suitable of a visitor in a hospital than what he usually wore. At first he received no look from the doctors he passed, and for that time he was actually foolish enough to believe he might be able to pass through the hospital unnoticed and without any trouble.

He made the first mistake while passing a hallway that led out from the building's cafeteria. A small girl skipped out in front of him, nearly tripping him. He halted and almost committed the error of instinctively reaching for his gun.

The girl looked up at him with wide, bright eyes and smiled. Looking down at her he saw that there was an embroidered picture of small dog on her shirt.

"Are you lost?" she asked suddenly, and before he could stop himself he jumped back, feeling an expression of something like fear mixed with astonishment on his face.

"You look like you're lost," she continued when he did not respond. She pointed back over her shoulder. "The cafeteria is that way. The food's all right, but my mommy makes it better. My mommy's here. I'm visiting her. She had a baby today. I have a baby brother now. Do you have a baby brother?"

_No_, he thought, _but I have a dead mother who was killed for her own meaningless idealism._ "No," he told the girl, "I don't."

"Maybe you'll get one someday. My brother doesn't have a name yet, but my mommy is thinking about calling him Milliardo. I know a lot of people named Milliardo. Do you know why?"

He didn't respond.

"It's because Milliardo is the name of the"—she thought for a moment—"the Crown Prince of Sanq. I don't know what's supposed to be so special about that."

A man — her father, presumably — found her then, coming from paying for their dinner, and swept her up into his arms. "I hope she wasn't bothering you," he told Heero. Heero merely shook his head and walked away before anything more could be said.

A nurses' station came into view up head. He tried to slink past it without drawing any attention to himself, and for a moment he thought he would be successful. A very brief moment.

"May I help you, sir?"

He glanced at the nurse who had spoken to him and kept going as though he hadn't heard her.

"Excuse me, sir," she said, louder this time. "May I help you?"

He kept walking.

She repeated the question in Greek. When he failed to respond, she told a nearby nurse to phone security and went after him.

Heero broke into a run. Physicians and civilians alike stared at him as he rushed past them. He no longer cared. He had already screwed up.

The sound of footsteps behind him increased as the one nurse was joined by others, perhaps doctors or security guards. He did not look back to see.

There was a stairwell ahead on his right. He threw open the door and bounded up the stairs, pursued now by a medical team as well as a faceless adversary. On the fourth floor he stopped his ascent and flew through the doors, into an empty hallway. There was another door directly across from the one behind him and he rushed to it, throwing it open and running into the room without a thought to what it might be. He locked it immediately behind him.

The room, he saw when he turned around, was a lobby, not one designed for visitors but rather one for the physicians. It was utterly spotless, immaculately clean, comfortably furnished. It was utterly silent inside and utterly empty save for Heero himself and the woman who stared up at him calmly from her seat a few feet from the doorway.

She was young, older than Heero but young still, and undeniably of Asian descent. Her face was undeniably benevolent, warm and generous while her eyes seemed to hold some kind of dark knowledge that added to her age.

When he learned her name, he would find all this entirely too convenient.

"May I help you?" she asked, bestowing upon him a sweet smile.

He only looked at her.

"Do you speak English?"

Still he could not find the words to reply.

She repeated the question in Greek.

"Hn" was all he could manage.

She studied his own Oriental countenance and rephrased her question in Mandarin Chinese.

Again nothing.

"_Nihonjin desu ka_?"

"_Hai_," he was finally able to say.

Her gracious smile widened. "_Watashi_ _wa Moudo desu_," she said, then added, "Moudo Sakura."

The name froze him. He stared at her with perplexed eyes while she merely smiled at him, then the sound of a phalanx running through the halls outside pulled his mind back to the task at hand.

"You never saw me," he said quickly in Japanese, then turned to unlock the door. He left as quickly and silently as he had entered, now behind the frantic nurse and the security personnel. He proceeded stealthily down the corridor, wondering what else was sure to go wrong before he was able to return to his current mission, which had been appointed by none other than himself.

At last he located a large storage closet. He slipped inside and discovered rows of green surgical uniforms. He allowed himself one moment to think of how Odin would laugh to see him like this, then began pulling the scrubs over his clothes. It was certainly not the greatest disguise he had ever donned, but it would suffice.

Covered now in the clothes of one who worked to preserve life rather than destroy it, he went back out into the corridor. It was still quiet on this end, but farther away he could hear the low hum of conversation, and no doubt that conversation was about him. He couldn't afford to waste any more time.

He walked on in search of an elevator. He was almost to the elevator alcove when a nurse, pale and frenzied, ran at him. He thought that perhaps she had seen through his disguise and prepared to disable her, when she called out urgently, "Doctor, you're needed on floor eleven!"

She darted around him and pushed the button marked '11.' Before Heero realized what she was doing, she shoved him, knocking him off his balance and into the elevator. The doors closed immediately behind him.

He cursed calmly under his breath and waited.

He bolted from the elevator the instant that the doors opened. This floor was much more active than the one he had just been on, bustling with the news of an intruder slipping through security and some kind of relapse in room 1147. He started down the hall at a jog, which was certainly no longer out of place, and broke into another run when he spotted the next elevator alcove. His increase in speed wasn't timely enough, however, for one nurse who apparently had been on the ground floor when he had first drawn suspicion, caught enough of a glimpse of his face to recognize him.

"It's him!" she shouted, pointing violently, and in less than an instant another party assembled itself and gave chase. "Shit," he mumbled, and made for the alcove.

An empty steel cart stood in the alcove as though waiting solely for his purposes. One of the elevators was being called down, but its outer doors had yet to close. There was no time to wait for another. Heero saw immediately what he had to do.

He grabbed the cart and pushed it between the elevator's outer doors as they closed. With a stifled grunt he jumped on top of the cart and leapt into the elevator shaft.

He landed on his knees on the roof of the still-descending elevator. The pain was sharp and hot but brief, and he gained his footing quickly.

The elevator descended to the fourth floor. Several people entered it and these were beyond a doubt security guards, for as he stood there motionless and silent, Heero could hear the shuffling of their hard-soled shoes and the battering of their nightsticks against their legs, and as the doors again closed he heard one of them cock his gun.

He only wished he could move to do the same.

The elevator went up only one level and stopped. The unit of guards all exited it, and after a few minutes all became still again.

Heero looked down at the roof. It was now or never.

He kicked at the roof, loudly, violently, but there was no time to be discreet. His foot went through on the second kick, and luckily the roof was made of a more plastic material rather than glass, for it gave him no more than a minor scrape through his clothes.

He withdrew his foot and tore away the remains of the panel, tossing them into the shaft behind him. The noise had not been enough to attract attention, for he saw no one staring in at the elevator from the hallway. He leapt through the hole that had once been the roof of the elevator and darted out into the corridor. It was still empty, but he sensed it would not be for much longer.

He crept through the labyrinth of hallways silently but swiftly. The unnatural quiet of this wing disturbed him, almost as much as the little girl and the woman who bore his mother's name had. He realized the reason for the unsettling lull, though, when at last a sign hanging from the ceiling caught his eye, informing him that he had inadvertently sought refuge and escape on the children's ward.

It was too late to turn back. If he did that now, he was sure to encounter the guards who were searching for him.

He came, after some immeasurable amount of time had elapsed, to the end of a hallway, and none branched off from it. He could simply have retraced his steps and taken a different path in the disturbingly vast ward, but strangely, he did not. Rather, he found himself walking toward the door on his right. He tried the knob and found it unlocked.

The room was not dark as it should have been at this hour on this ward. A single lamp burned in the corner, illuminating one side of the room while bathing the other side in shadow.

The only bed lay on the edge of the light. A small child lay atop it, resting against the mound of pillows. It was another young girl, he saw, somewhat older but nowhere near as healthy or happy as the one he had encountered earlier in the evening. She was too thin, this girl, bony and starved-looking. Her skin was not the healthy, expected pink but was instead sallow and gray, even bruised in places. The girl's blue eyes were sunken and ringed, looking as close to death as had many men whom Heero had seen on the battlefields of the past.

The child's affliction was evident immediately. Her head was smooth and uncovered, and there was not a single hair upon it.

He had seen so many die, so many tortured by the devices of war; he had seen so many tears and heard so many screams, but this halted him like nothing he had seen in war had been able to do.

"Hi," the girl said. She studied him for a moment, then asked, "Are you one of my doctors?"

He could only shake his head. Was this never going to end tonight?

"Then who are you?"

"I'm not even sure of that myself sometimes."

The girl gave him a confused look. "Do you have a name?"

He nodded solemnly. If it had been even one of the other gundam pilots he would not have hesitated to go to the window and finally escape one pursuit only to return to another one, but under this child's gaze he was powerless.

"My name is–"

_Don't say 'Mary.'_

"Galandri," she finished. "What's yours?"

"Takeru," he answered, though he had not intended to. The name slipped from his tongue before he could realize what he was saying.

The girl smiled. "That's a nice name. Are you new here? I haven't seen you before." Her glistening eyes – still so alive despite the death that raged and spread within her — traveled down to his feet and she smiled. He followed her gaze and realized he had neglected to put anything on over his shoes.

"You're not really a doctor at all, are you?"

"No, I'm not." At this he removed the loose uniform. If the girl noticed his gun and recognized what it was, she said nothing of it.

"Are you an angel, then?"

He stopped and looked at her.

"Mommy said that I wasn't to be scared because if it ever hurts too bad, an angel would come take me away. Are you an angel?"

He realized what she was saying and somehow it stung him. Men were fighting and killing one another all for one man's ideal that would come soon enough while this child waited through a kind of suffering most of them could never imagine for something as simple and taken-on-faith as this. Wars were waged and countless otherwise innocent were soldiers killed while young children such as this one waged a battle all of their own, one they could not understand and were often certain to lose, as the rest of the world went on with its own concerns. Was there really no meaning to it all, no absolution? Was this girl's soul really worth no more, ultimately, than Dekim Barton's?

He decided then that this entire evening was an overdue punishment for what he had done to that girl on the colony, the one who had given him the flower and then run after her dear puppy, completely unknowing, completely innocent–

"Stop it," he whispered to himself.

The girl looked up at him expectantly.

"I'm not an angel," he said finally.

"Would you like to be one?"

_Would this night never end!_

"I can't."

The girl pressed on. "Why not? Mommy says that I might be one someday."

"Because murderers don't become angels."

Her brow furrowed. "You mean like in killing people?" She did not seem scared in the least by him. "There were angels who had to kill people. One of the priests told me that one time. He said it was their mission, just like it's a soldier's mission to do it too sometimes. We're Greek Orthodox. Are you?"

He shook his head. "I don't believe in those things."

Again the expression on her face changed, but still it was not to fear or anger. Rather, it seemed piteous, as though he were the one calmly dying inside instead of she. "Are you a soldier?" she asked.

"Yeah."

She seemed content with this. Her large blue eyes went to the door, beyond which could be heard an army of heavy footsteps. "You'd better go now," she said. "They're still looking for you."

He did not question how she knew this. He merely nodded and stifled a great sigh when he realized that whatever force had been holding him to that spot was now gone.

The girl laughed when she saw that he was going to leave by way of the window. He stopped on its ledge and looked at her.

"I knew you were an angel," she said. "You're going to fly away, aren't you?"

He supposed she could say that. "Yeah."

"Even if you're not my angel, can I tell you something?" Her face sobered as she spoke these words, and her eyes seemed to brim with tears.

"What?"

"Sometimes it hurts really bad." One tear spilled over her eyelid and streaked down her pale face, glistening in the lamplight.

He tried to soften his expression. "Pain is only temporary," he told her, and when again she looked confused, he explained, "It can only last for so long before it starts to get better."

The girl smiled. "Goodbye, angel," she said, and lifted one small hand to wave.

He ducked through the window and stepped out onto the ledge. After a moment of consideration he turned as far as the ledge would allow and pushed the girl's window shut.

The night had become windier since he had entered the hospital, and the concrete ledge was much narrower than he had anticipated. He would have to keep his back pressed to the wall as he crossed it.

Quickly, with a feline grace that came more as instinct than a learned skill, Heero moved to the corner of the ledge, where it protruded over the entrance to the parking garage. If he jumped now he would undoubtedly be spotted by one of the parking attendants if not by a handful of security cameras as well. But if he were to go on further, where the cement ended and the lawn began, his chances of accomplishing what he had intended to do were increased. Not by much, but they would have to suffice.

He proceeded along the ledge. Sirens could now be heard in the distance, apparently summoned to the hospital to aid in the search for and the apprehension of the intruder. There were several squadrons of them by the sound of it, too many for him to fight off and disable at once. Unless he wanted to spend the night in a heavily guarded prison and listen to Odin's sardonic laughter at him after he was liberated by his 'father,' he had to get out of here now.

He hadn't disagreed with the girl when she had asked if he really were going to fly from the hospital. If he were still near her window she would have been able to see her angel take to the air, but she would also have seen him fall to the ground, wingless, perhaps only to be cornered by another group of the search party below.

He inched away from the wall, placing himself on the tip of the ledge. The cold night wind whipped through his hair and the white shirt he wore, creating a sound not at all unlike the fluttering of wings.   
His last thought before jumping was that Trowa was much better suited for this kind of thing.

Heero sprang from the ledge, gripping his gun to prevent it from being lost in the fall. The air that rushed around him was like a lover's caress and a hard slap at the same time, and in the sensation of falling he could almost grasp something that felt like the emptiness he so desired.

He went completely limp the moment before he hit the ground. He rolled the rest of the way down the steep hill this side of the complex had been set on, coming to a stop finally more than one hundred feet below the ledge from which he had leapt and a good seventy yards from the hospital grounds. Nothing seemed injured too badly, and he wasted no time before he leapt to his feet and ran on. It was only slightly more than a mile to the base from here, and if he drew no more attention to himself he could accomplish his mission before daybreak, and with any luck this final encounter would yield much better results than had the one in Spain.

Of course, he thought, as he moved quickly through the chilled night, only barely aware of the dull pain in his leg from his angelic fall, if these circumstances worked better to her advantage than those of that previous encounter, she would make that next to impossible.

**II**

Marguerite St. Domingue was called into the base's subterranean medical ward two hours after night had fallen, informed by Odin that Rhyn had at last regained consciousness. It was Odin who had, the previous night, gone to her after hearing of her reaction to learning of Rhyn's inclusion in the list of casualties and informed her that this had been an error. She had listened, crying quietly, as he explained the cause of this error had been how badly damaged Rhyn's mobile suit had been, and while by all rights he should have been dead considering what he had endured in battle, he was merely unconscious and was expected to awaken within the next twenty-four hours. She ran to the ward as swiftly as she had run to their room the day before, and when one of the physicians escorted her to Rhyn's private room she was greeted by Rhyn at the door, who, though he was not supposed to be moving excessively yet, had forcibly pushed the doctor out of the doorway and pulled Marguerite in, locking the door behind them.

It was believed that in spite of his injuries, his recovery would be quick and full. He would no longer be able to fight, however, but this ruling was hardly considered unfair by those involved.

The counteroffensive, it seemed, now waited upon the arrival of the boy calling himself Heero Yuy.

**Author's Notes: **This chapter was rather difficult to write. It seems to be a favorite scene of many, but I (as were several others very close to me) was going through a very hard time when I wrote it. I wanted it to be a poetically surreal chapter, in which events almost seem to occur without real reason, as if almost every character in it were in a daze of some kind. I'm not really sure how successful I was in this, but the next chapter (which is, inconsequentially, my favorite of the entire story) is much more abstract and emotional. Both of these chapters, and the one following them, I believe, also provided another opportunity to torture Heero, and everyone knows that I'm always up for that.

I feel I should explain this: Heero answers the phone so readily due to past experiences while working with Odin in which similar has occurred. He's completely accustomed to Odin's seeming omnipresence; thus, it ceases to faze him. As for how Heero jumps from such a great height and receives no major injuries, it must be kept in mind that in the GW series, he does blow himself up and survives without so much as a scar.

On a more humorous note, my friend also did a doujinshi of this chapter, in which Heero breaks his leg after jumping out the window and is caught by the police. Odin and Yuan-Chen set out to free him, but are distracted by a doughnut shop on the way.


	23. Chapter Twenty Two

_Chapter Twenty Two_

**I**

He crept along the edge of the building, keeping low to the ground and moving in complete and perfect silence, clutching the gun in his cold-numbed hand like the chain of a rosary, as though it were his salvation rather than a tool designed to commit murder. The shadows that engulfed the place were both his silent allies and his enemies, shielding both him and the one who followed him from each other's sight. Not being able to see his enemy was no hindrance, of course, nor did the prospect of this shadowed blindness intimidate him. He had learned how to overcome such situations a long time ago.

_Dekim. That accursed name. That accursed face. Those accursed hands lowering the black cloth over his eyes when he was still but a child, tying the edges tightly at the back of his head. _

"Let's see if you truly are as skilled as they say."

Running at him, throwing strengthened but childish punches blindly at Dekim's moving form. He could still taste the blood in his mouth.

"Your mother was a disillusioned whore and she did better than this! Do it, boy!"

His mother. He remembered her still, the woman he had known so briefly and would soon be forced to forget. How beautiful she had been, so beautiful that often he referred to her as '_tenshi_' rather than 'mother.' How she had held him whenever he cried, how she sang to him to sleep each evening. Her face stained with blood as she lay on the burned ground amid the wails of the dying all around her, paralyzed by the bullets from Dekim Barton's gun, his mother dying in front of him, his mother—

At last hitting him. The pain shooting up his injured arm as he realized that underneath his uniform Dekim was wearing something to protect himself. Dekim grabbing him by the hair, all but throwing him across the room, still blind-folded. Footsteps, rapid and authoritative, impending drum beats of doom, approaching him. Dekim's breath against his half-covered face.

"Are you yet afraid of me, boy?"

Swallow the blood. Imagine that it is Dekim's. "_Omae o korosu._"

Heero fell back against the wall, shivering suddenly, overcome by these images as he could not be by the darkness. The gun slipped slowly from his hand.

"_Damare_," he whispered, his voice a frightful, panicked rasp. "_Damare, damare, stop this, please stop it…_"

Something moved in the darkness to his right. He leapt up from his slumped crouch and the girl laughed, a high, clear sound in the cold wind, running forth again in the shadows, teasing him, beckoning him.

He straightened against the wall and waited.

She had been playing foolish games with him throughout his journey to Thessaloníki, and now that he had reached the base, she was preparing to strike.

The faint sound of quickened footsteps, first to his left, then again to his right. Her laughter rang out again in the eerie night, the glassy tolling of bells bidding the superstitious living come to a funeral, bidding him come to her.

"What the hell are you doing," he muttered. The sound of his voice echoed back to him: hollow, empty. _One word from your lips could terrify the devil himself,_ Relena had once told him, but he thought she had really meant that he terrified her. If she could hear him now, would she maintain that opinion? If she could see him in this state, frozen in a half-crouch by an icy laugh, weaponless, shivering from an inner cold that would not be appeased, like the blue of a flame, would she still feel that terror, or would she perhaps begin to understand?

He felt something approach him, felt the passage of air as the girl came within only inches of him. His hand shot out in the darkness and closed around nothing.

Her approach had not been without purpose, however. When he felt about the ground beneath him he found that wherever the gun had fallen, it was gone now.

His sense of her presence abruptly ebbed. Further away on the wind he could barely catch the sound of her breathing, harder and faster now, as though she were suddenly forsaking her stealth and breaking into a run.

Heero gave chase without hesitation.

_Then out into the night she went, and stooping, crept by hedge and tree…_

The darkness in all its dreary perfection fell away to a hazy moonlit glow, illuminating the ruins of the base. He wondered vaguely how many lay dead in its desolate rubble.

He caught a brief glimpse of her as she left the sheltering shadow of the ruins and fled toward the vast courtyard, where she again disappeared into the trees that had been spared in the siege. Something trailed after her, like the hem of a coat or the train of a dress, white and gleaming in the moonlight.

He ran into the courtyard after her. All thoughts of Treize and what Odin had said about interfering fled from his mind as he pursued her, as devotedly as she had once pursued him. He was without a weapon and terribly defenseless in the open, yet somehow he ceased to notice these things. The only thing that concerned him at the moment was finding her and eliminating her as a threat. How he would do this without a gun was not even yet a priority.

After some time he became aware that he had lost her trail; this was followed by the second epiphany, that he had become lost himself. He had been running far too long to be still within the confines of the courtyard, and yet as he looked around where he stood he saw that the great landscaped field was still behind him, though he had long since passed the last statue and fountain, and that the woods were still far before him, and beyond them, the coast. Was this what she had intended when she had started him on this path, that he should become hypnotized by the bleak monotony of it and would not realize it when he left the courtyard and came into the plain beyond? That he would eventually lose his sense of where she was while she escaped? Or perhaps she was still nearby, waiting, watching him with a wicked feline smile upon her face, gun in hand—

A light wind blew in from the shore, chilling him, penetrating his flesh to the bone, it seemed. A cold droplet rolled down the side of his face and he realized he was sweating.

Something was not right about all this. It was all too convenient for her, impossibly convenient. He was allowing her to win by entertaining the thought that perhaps she had already defeated him.

He did not turn and walk back toward the open courtyard. Instead he went onward, altering his own course to the left. The trees extended further inland as he proceeded, curving gently up a hill that took him back into the lawn, blocking from his damp face the wind. He could sense without questioning that Aphrodite was not hiding within them. Her trap had already been set elsewhere.

He crested the hill and saw, less than half a mile away, a light. As he neared it he saw that it came from within a tall white structure, one that looked more suited to be in the Imperial Palace of the Sanq Kingdom than a military base disguised as elegance, one that Heero certainly had not expected to see here.

The church was distinctly French in design, topped by high, arched battlements and slender steeples, all pointing toward Heaven like the spires of some antiquated device of torture. Its windows were long and painted, and the light that poured out from them was stained blue and gold, crimson and green, and it illuminated the images that were painted upon these large glass panels, religious icons he had rarely seen before.

Music, like the light, rolled out of the chapel and into the night, the clear resonant notes of a piano. He went toward it as though drawn by some outer force, some nameless will higher than his own. He was oblivious to this. Better to be oblivious than to acknowledge.

_A letter from my love today, _

_Oh, unexpected, dear appeal._

His walk slowed to an almost dazed stagger, as though he were hypnotized. Hypnotized. Was that the appropriate term for it, this haze that fell over his mind, eradicating his concern that he was walking into her trap, eradicating his desire to do otherwise? Yes, hypnotized. Hypnotized and on some level, desiring to be so.

_She struck a happy tear away,_

_And broke the crimson seal._

His hand clenched around a gun that was no longer there, loosened indifferently. His hand was trembling. He took no notice of this.

_My love, there is no help on earth. _

The music swelled, and with it, his mind ebbed. There was no clear thought in his head as he neared the chapel, no clear memory, only sharp, fragmented pieces, like so many shards of crushed glass. He saw the girl, the one with the small dog on the front of her shirt in the hospital, who had asked him if he was lost. He saw the girl before her, the one in the bright dress and the yellow hat, who had been the first to inquire this of him. He saw the corpse of the puppy.

_No help in heaven; the dead man's bell_

_Must toll our wedding; our first hearth_

_Must be the well-paved floor of hell._

The woman, a Japanese physician seeming a bit out of place in a Grecian facility. Sakura. Another woman of the same name, so long ago now. Sakura, _tenshi_. Her slender form being thrown backward as four holes, lined in crimson, appeared down her body. Her body going limp in Odin's arms, her silent farewell. Dekim's voice, Dekim's face appearing now before him. A club, a fist. A stifled cry of pain.

Why these things, why think of them now, why remember them now why remember them at all?

_Her eyes like ghostly candles shone; _

_The colour died from out her face,_

_She cast dread looks about the place,_

_Then clenched her teeth and read right on._

One last fleeting thought crossed over his shadowed mind as he stepped up to the doorway of the chapel, a vague wondering of what these things were that he was seeing, of why he should see them now. Part of him demanded, in this short moment, why they all suddenly mattered to him when in the past they had not; another part demanded why they didn't matter. Irrelevance, all of it.

His hand brushed against the partially open door, pushed it inward. The music rushed at him like a sword-bearing goddess of this ancient country. He hesitated in the doorway, unaware that he was doing so.

_I may not pass the prison door;_

_Here must I rot from day to day,_

_Unless I wed whom I abhor, _

_My cousin, Blanche of Valencay._

He stepped out of the night and into the warm, candlelit alcove. The door fell shut behind him. He stood there motionless for several minutes, expressionless, listening to the strangely bittersweet song but not really hearing it. Somewhere farther off in the chapel, an unseen clock chimed the hour. Twelve brassy echoes.

_At midnight with my dagger keen, _

_I'll take my life; it must be so,_

_Meet me in hell tonight, my queen,_

_For weal and woe._

The alcove was something out of a dream, softly arched above, large but not seeming so for smooth marble pillars were placed every few yards. At the center of the amber room stood a small fount. A baptismal. He was pulled inexorably toward the marble font; his footsteps made only the slightest sound as he crossed the room. There was water, untouched, most likely, in the curved basin. Floating above the water he saw a person, a dim, darkened figure, with an empty face and soulless eyes.

He allowed the tips of his fingers to graze the top of the water, destroying the image of the man.

_She laughed although her face was wan,_

_She girded on her golden belt,_

_She took her jewelled ivory fan,_

_And at her glowing missal knelt._

Through the open doorway, the song reached a crescendo. He could not waste any more time with this. The song—a blade through flesh and a lover's caress—called him forth.

He went fully into the chapel.

The room was large and breathtaking, of a high, arched ceiling and of walls covered in images. He found himself surrounded by painted angels and painted saints, stained glass Virgins, bleeding Christs. Statues were placed all about the room, save for by the blood-red carpet that ran down from the doorway to the altar, carved and sculpted bodies of purity. A large crucifix, a tortured body of a tormented Christ, stood behind the altar by the tabernacle.

Paintings of saints, paintings of purity. Men and women bleeding, surrounded by soft celestial lights. The _Annunciation_. A woman, dark-haired and plain-looking yet strangely beautiful sitting upon a great throne, a crown upon her head. An infant in her arms. Another picture of the same woman, crowned by the stars of the heavens themselves. Tiny lights like those of the colonies.

The images were placed all the way up unto the ceiling, portraits of saints whose names he had never heard, pictures of blood and of sacrifice, a morbid painting of a robed monk being assaulted by a legion of demons. Another form of war. Such an art it had become.

The room in all its spiritual beauty was lit entirely by rows of candles.

On the far side of the room, sitting at a black piano by a statue of the Virgin, was Aphrodite. She looked up only briefly when he entered. A soft smile flickered upon her face.

_Then rose, 'And am I mad' she said:_

_She broke her fan, her belt untied;_

_With leather girt herself instead,_

_And stuck a dagger at her side. _

She was strangely beautiful in the unearthly scene, a vision amidst a sea of things given life only by faith. Her auburn hair was loose and fell about her bare arms in a graceful mantle, like that of the Virgin Mary in the statue before her. She was dressed in white, in a long gown of some silken material that held the candlelight like dew on the petals of a rose. The neckline of the gown was low and exposing, baring the full curves of her white breasts. The embodiment of piety and a succubus in one.

Her eyes flew up from the keys once more, looked across the distance of the room directly into his own. Beckoning him, yes. Waiting for him. All this time, she had been waiting for him. His eyes darted to the unsheathed blade that gleamed upon the smooth darkness of the piano. Death in a single quick thrust. Perhaps he had been waiting for her as well.

_She waited, shuddering in her room,_

_Till sleep had fallen on all the house. _

_She never flinched; she faced her doom:_

_They two must sin to keep their vows. _

So be it then. So be it. _Amen. _

He began to approach the piano, his mind no clearer now than it had been. This was, after all, only another mission.

He was aware of one thing, however: he would not be walking away from this. Even if he were the one left standing at the end of whatever the hell she had called him here for, something within him (_what was left after all these many years what could possibly be left?_) would never be able to walk away.

But these thoughts, too, were fleeting. Irrelevant. All he knew—_all _that he knew now—was that he must go forward. Go to her. Go to her and her gleaming blade, yes, and let thy will be done.

_Then out into the night she went,_

_And, stooping, crept by hedge and tree;_

_Her rose-bush flung a snare of scent, _

_And caught a happy memory._

There were no happy memories here, though. There were no longer any memories at all.

Surrounded, as he proceeded further into the chapel, by the images, the statues, the soft amber light. The vague scent of incense. So many candles, so many tiny flames, perhaps enough to rival the number of souls in hell. Reminders, constants, that no faith could be without sacrifice, that retribution comes in the form of blood. Always blood. So much of it. So much staining his own hands.

God, would this night never end?

He stumbled, caught himself by placing one hand loosely upon the base of a statue that rushed up to meet his dazed face. His knees went to the floor. He looked up and saw, emptily, the face of a robed man peering down expressionlessly upon him, arms outstretched as though to welcome a stained sinner into them. As though seeing something else entirely, he gasped and leapt away from the statue, staring at it as though he expected it to become animate and drag him into the pit of hell itself.

Aphrodite again glanced at him, a solemn dark being unnerved by the calmness with which he approached her.

_She fell, and lay a minute's space;_

_She tore the sward in her distress;_

_The dewy grass refreshed her face;_

_She rose and ran with lifted dress._

_She started like a morn-caught ghost_

_Once when the moon came out and stood_

_To watch; the naked road she crossed, _

_And dived into the murmuring wood._

_The branches snatched her streaming cloak;_

_A live thing shrieked; she made no stay!_

_She hurried to the trysting oak–_

_Right well she knew the way. _

_What are you doing_, he tried to say, but when he moved his lips to form the words he found that they would not come. An image arose behind his eyes. The other girl, the one that had perhaps sealed his mental state this evening. Cancer-bald and too young to endure such pain, too young to know it even existed. _Are you an angel_? No, no, but a murderer, a faithless assassin without a soul. Bathed in blood, not that of any kind of savior but rather the blood of all those whose lives he had ended. His own blood would be retribution for them. Was that what the girl's life, what her blood, would be then? Retribution? An offering to God on behalf of the world and its pathetic state? Please, take this body, take this blood, let it stand for my own sins?

Enough!

_Without a pause, she bared her breast, _

_And drove her dagger home and fell,_

_And lay like one who takes her rest, _

_And died and wakened up in hell._

"What's wrong, Heero?" a voice rang out over the gliding notes of the piano, her voice, Aphrodite. She smiled at him, the feline smirk of one who is either truly evil or truly insane. "Why don't you try to kill me?"

He merely looked at her. He could not have spoken if he had tried.

The music swelled again. It was a song both passive and chaotic, tranquil and cacophonous, filling all the air with its cry, echoing in his ears until he thought the sound of it would drive him completely out of his mind, if indeed he had not yet reached that point. The notes fluctuated, coming quickly and forcefully for the length of a movement, then slowing to a mournful wail. A song for the blood of war. The blood of life. The dreary anguish of the lost. A ballad of war, perhaps.

_She bathed her spirit in the flame,_

_And near the centre took her post;_

_From all sides to her ears there came_

_The dreary anguish of the lost._

He stepped toward her, took another step. He was only yards away from her now.

_The devil started at her side,_

_Comely, tall, and black as jet. _

'_I am young Malepsina's bride;_

_Has he come hither yet?'_

"You are such a fool, Heero. Or may I call you Takeru Hanasaki? That is your name after all, is it not?"

He could not respond.

Her fingers slid up the keyboard in a clamorous glissando. "Such a dreary fool. The spawn of an anarchist whore. Tell me, Takeru, do you believe in the end of the world? The great Apocalypse?"

'_My poppet, welcome to your bed.'_

'_Is Malespina here?'_

'_Not he! Tomorrow he must wed_

_His cousin Blanche, my dear!'_

She continued on, unabated by his failure to respond. "If I were a believer in such things and, hypothetically, were such a fundamentalist that I did not look for symbolism but rather concrete evidence and literal truths, I could almost come to the conclusion that your mother was the whore of Babylon. Or what do you think, Takeru? You probably see her more as the woman of the crown of stars. Do you?"

'_You lie, he died with me tonight.'_

'_Not he! it was a plot' . . . 'You lie.'_

'_My dear, I never lie outright.'_

'_We died at midnight, he and I.' _

She met his eyes again, smiled. "My, my, you're hardly the one I met in the woods that day in Spain. You look as if you've died and returned from hell. What's happened to you, Yuy? Did some enticing seductress play Delilah for you and cut off whatever it is you draw your strength from?" Her eyes narrowed and her lips curled up into a devilish grin. "Or did you give it her? Did you? Would you have given it to me?"

His consciousness flickered for a brief moment, long enough, however, to grant him one realization, that the girl was indeed insane, insane and delusional, and more dangerous because of it. If any trace of a rational, sane mind had once existed within her, it was gone now.

"Answer me, damn you!" she screamed, allowing her hands to come down upon the ivory keys in a shrill, discordant bang. "Would you have given it to me?"

When he did not reply, she flashed him a malicious expression and returned to her song.

_The devil went. Without a groan _

_She, gathered up in one fierce prayer,_

_Took root in hell's midst all alone, _

_And waited for him there._

The song ended. She merely sat upon the elegant bench in a slump as the final notes echoed on above them, her head bowed, her strange eyes closed.

The silence that ensued was perhaps the longest he had ever experienced.

_She dared to make herself at home_

_Amidst the wail, the uneasy stir._

_The blood-stained flame that filled the dome, _

_Scentless and silent, shrouded her._

At last she stood. Her eyes burned deep into his as she faced him, driving him senseless again as his mind fell away, as a shadow, into some darkened chaos. The gown clung to her body in all the necessary places, swelling around her half-exposed breasts and her hips, and then it flowed out away from her, making her appear, as she stood before and stared at him with all the force of an army, a goddess, ready not for the hunt or for the battle but rather for another act that was simply part of the nature of the human being. The goddess for whom she had been named had been skilled in such arts.

_How long she stayed I cannot tell;_

_But when she felt his perfidy, _

_She marched across the floor of hell;_

_And all the damned stood up to see._

She made one single step toward him, as tentatively as he had approached her only minutes ago. The smile lingered upon her face.

_The devil stopped her at the brink:_

_She shook him off; she cried, 'Away!'_

'_My dear, you have gone mad, I think.'_

'_I was betrayed: I will not stay.'_

"Heero Yuy," she said softly. The candlelight flickered upon her beautifully sinister face. "Shall we at last put these foolish affairs to an end?"

So be it, so be it, _amen_.

Another step she advanced, another. She would be close enough to touch him soon.

_Across the weltering deep she ran;_

_A stranger thing was never seen:_

_The damned stood silent to a man; _

_They saw the great gulf set between._

"I think," she said as she came closer to him, smiling still, "that I will drink your blood once I've killed you. You would have to give it to me then."

Blood is everything.

_To her it seemed a meadow fair; _

_And flowers sprang up about her feet_

_She entered heaven; she climbed the stair_

_And knelt-down at the mercy-seat._

"Yes, I think I will enjoy this very much, Takeru."

_Seraphs and saints with one great voice_

_Welcomed that soul that knew not fear._

_Amazed to find it could rejoice, _

_Hell raised a hoarse, half-human cheer._

Without any forewarning, she leapt to the side and scooped the dagger up into her hand. From her throat erupted a loud cry and she lunged at him, slashing at him wildly with the dagger as, above them, flocks of painted angels looked on passively. His mind was torn from whatever distant reverie had entrapped it earlier and, almost too late, he dodged the wicked blade.

She did not cease in her advancement. She lunged at him again, again, a demented woman with an insatiable longing for death, for his death. Maybe for even her own.

"Do you feel anything from this, Yuy?" she cried above the clashing of their frenzied footsteps, driving the blade forward again and missing. She gave a high laugh. "Do you feel anything at all? This is the truth behind the lie, Takeru: that we"—slash—"as human beings"—thrust—"are nothing more than mere animals, that inwardly we desire nothing more than to satisfy our own lusts!"

He fended off a certain wound by blocking her wrist with his own. The tip of the blade scratched through the thin fabric of his shirt and across the flesh of his arm.

Angered, she ripped her arm away from his and brought the dagger down at his thigh. He leapt away just as he felt the blade rend the air over him.

"Do you feel any lust for this?" she continued, her teeth bared like those of one of the predatorily instinctive creatures of which she spoke. She rushed at him, driving him backward into a marble statue of a cassocked saint. "Do you feel it? How can you not! This is what you want, isn't it?"

The blade sliced through the air, grazing the skin of his chest. She was toying with him with these new ineffective attacks.

"What drives you to fight? What drives you to kill? You kill because you want to, because it satisfies you! Doesn't it, Yuy? Doesn't it satisfy you in ways that nothing else can? Doesn't it make you want to cry and beg for more? Doesn't it make you want that ultimate pleasure, that of your own death!"

She drove the dagger at his throat. He ducked and rolled across the floor away from her, but in less than a moment she was looming over him, smiling deliriously in the flickering candlelight, gripping the hilt of the dagger like a talisman.

She knelt down over him, her knees burrowing into his bleeding chest. She lowered her face until it was only a few short inches away from his own, their lips almost touching.

"Tell me, Yuy," she purred in a disgustingly seductive whisper. "Have you ever made love to someone you were about to kill? Have you ever done it to someone _while _you killed them? That is the only one thing better than obtaining your own death." She lowered her face further, brushed her lips against his. "Do you want me now, Yuy?" Again, her malicious smile. "Do you want me to stay like this and control you? No, that wouldn't be like you at all, would it? Do you want me to play the part of your whore, as your mother was to the assassin? To play the part of the whore, and then kill you. You want death, I can see it in your eyes. Would you like for me to give it to you?"

"Get off me," he growled, and in he pushed her away from him. Utterly unprepared for the assault, she tumbled back, and the back of her head connected with the marble base of the statue. There she lay motionless.

_Dear God, had he killed her so easily?_

Of course not. Nothing was ever that convenient for him.

He moved toward her, slowly, quietly. The dagger had fallen from her hand when she hit the base and he took it into his own, keeping a steady eye on the slow rise and fall of her abdomen as she continued breathing even after the injury.

He tightened his grip on the hilt and waited.

"Did you really think it would be so easy?" she mumbled after only a minute. _How could she have remained conscious after that_? Her green eyes fluttered open and she smiled. "Did you really think it would be so simple?"

Before he could move to stop her, she sprang to her feet and delivered a swift kick to his ribcage, trying to topple him back onto the floor. It occurred to him only briefly as she lunged down at him that he had never, in all the years since he had lost his innocence and humanity and first stained his hands with blood, killed so closely, so personally. There was no mobile suit to shield his face from that of his enemy, nor was there a gun to focus on, a gun that would allow him to carry out this vile business from across the room. There was only this blade and her vulnerable flesh.

The thought departed as quickly as it had come.

He drove the blade upward as she came down upon him. She saw the arc of his hand in time and swiftly moved to the side, but not in time to save herself from injury.

The blade ripped into the tender flesh of her arm, tearing away a tatter of skin with a rending sound that almost induced a more permanent insanity. She cried out and fell to the floor beside him, clutching at her arm with a bloodstained hand, gritting her teeth against the sudden pain. A thin layer of flesh hung loosely from the cut.

Immediately she sprang at him again, fearless of the blade and ignoring what it had just done to her. With a loud grunt he slashed at her again, tearing open part of the reddened gown and slicing into the firm skin of her hip, missing her vulnerable abdomen by mere inches.

The blood that issued from the wound was dark and rapid. The blade—though Aphrodite seemed unaware of this—had cut into something inside her, something more vital than she realized.

His mind, from that point, was surrendered again unto a great void.

Saints all around them. Staring. Praying. Loving. Accusing. Condemning even with the most serene or compassionate of expressions what was taking place under their watchful gaze. Tormented by their own demons, too tormented to care that a battle went on before them. All different. All one and the same.

The blade again found her flesh, burying the first inches of itself into her right shoulder. She hissed and, weaponless, attempted futilely to shove him back into the railing of the altar.

Blood soaking her now. Blood soaking both of them. The gown was torn and ruined, the body beneath it severely wounded and perhaps dying. Blood flowed down her arms and was smeared across her face as she continued her assault on him, heedless of the blade. Perhaps on some level she sensed his hand's refusal to use it.

"Do you think this hurts, Yuy?" she shrieked, trying to dodge the blade and tackle him at the waist.

He brought the weapon down. The blade pierced her upper back as intended but not either her heart or lungs, scraping instead off of her scapula.

"Do you think…do you think this actually hurts?" She, gasping suddenly, pushed herself away from him. The dagger ripped up her back, laying open the tissues inside, with a sound rivaling and defeating that of it tearing open her arm.

Such an accursed violence. There was nothing poetic about this, nothing that could be romanticized for the sake of the glory of a war. Nothing but sheer, animalistic violence, an instinct to kill, to drive the dagger into her quivering, blood-soaked body again and again until she at last lay still, to soak his hands in the blood that flowed from the gashes he himself had inflicted. Amazing, how significant the blood is. The strongest body can be taken down with the right shedding of it.

Saints all around them. Images of blood, of crucifixion. A dying man nailed—in some pictures through the palms and in others through the wrists—to a crude board of wood. A dying man groaning in the pains of death. A child sleeping. A woman, rich and beautiful, clutching a scepter as a flock of angels knelt around her. A woman, poor and ordinary, holding an infant that had been washed of all the blood that accompanied birth.

Eyes all around them. Watching, unblinking. The host of heaven and half of that of hell watching as the sanctuary was defiled by human blood.

She had not yet recovered from her most recent wound and he advanced upon her, dagger kept low at his side, then swiftly brought it up in an arc, burying its full length in the vulnerable flesh of her abdomen. Blood erupted from her lips and began to course down his arm. Such dark, dark, dark, vital blood. Blood as dark as ebony. Her entire figure shuddered and fell over his arm and he drove the blade further upward, rending her flesh and all the vital tissues beneath it. Savagery under the watch of the vigilant saints.

He withdrew the dagger and she collapsed. There she knelt upon the floor for what seemed to him like the end of one eternity and the beginning of another, and then she began to laugh. Her voice, this time, was quiet and shaky. He didn't think she could manage anything more than that.

So quiet was her laugh that he could still hear drops of her blood running down the blade and falling onto the floor.

"Please, Yuy…Takeru," she began, and laughed softly under her slowing breaths. "Don't underestimate me so much. You're repeating the…the sins of your mother."

Another laugh. If he could hear the sounds of the demons depicted in some of the images, he had no doubt they would sound like she did at this moment.

"Don't underestimate me."

She pulled herself, slowly, to her feet. He thought she would collapse again and for a moment she almost did, then quickly, as he fell for her illusion, she pushed herself forward, driving him back, driving his arm with the dagger behind him. She rushed at him with what had to be the last of her energy back toward the piano where he had found her earlier, a pagan goddess, toward the statue of the Virgin.

Eyes, everywhere eyes, angels with drawn swords.

He slashed wildly at her, slitting the skin below her neck. The white of one of her collar bones showed through the seeping cut. He slashed again, again, unaware that he was screaming as he did it, attacking her as fiercely as she had attacked him but with a deadly accuracy, slashing her, cutting her, bathing himself in a river of her blood as his own dried, don't look at her, don't look at where the blade is cutting her—

She stopped moving in her futile assault of him. The scream died in his throat and his eyes widened, as his hand fell limply away from the dagger he could no longer withdraw.

She was impaled upon it, the blade having been driven between her breasts and turned. The hilt was all that protruded and her hand, suddenly delicate and trembling, grasped it loosely as though trying to pull it out. Blood gushed over her lips and she gave a low, tearless sob, then at last she collapsed. He caught her as she fell for some ungodly reason that seemed unknown even to his own mind and he lay her gently upon the floor at the foot of the statue, as though leaving an offering for his own transgressions. She stared blindly up at him, gasping, bleeding, and he saw that she was crying now but the tears were red. Blood ran down her face in crimson rivulets, tears of sacrifice, blood tears to wash away the fear from her eyes, tears that ran down onto his own hands. If she had been a goddess earlier, now she was merely beautiful, as the crimson stained her cheeks and lips, beautiful in a way that he had never seen before, in a way that he hoped to never see again. _So very beautiful. _

"Please don't…don't leave me…here like…this," she pleaded as the tears began to come faster, sacrificial streams of red. "It's so cold."

He merely stared at her. Was this always to be his mission in life, to watch death, called forth by his own hands?

His eyes, unable to look at her, wandered upward to the statue, and he almost released her. The marble Virgin's face was red, streaked by blood as was Aphrodite's, blood that issued forth from her eyes. He felt, for one moment, the last shreds of his mind trying to rip away into the same insanity that had engulfed Aphrodite so long ago, then he realized that the blood did not pour down from the eyes but rather had been splattered there, God only knew from which of her wounds.

Further upward, the centerpiece of the ceiling. The face of Christ, the eyes of God looking down upon him. The eyes of God looking down upon him.

Aphrodite gave a hitched sigh and fell limp in his arms. The dagger ceased to move with the rise and fall of her chest.

His eyes fell closed; his body fell back onto the floor. When he regained consciousness hours later, the candles had all gone out as though on the breath of God Himself, darkening against his vision the images and the bloody statue, and the corpse in his arms lay cold,

**II**

_Where am I_? she thought again, perhaps for the millionth time, perhaps only for the second. After all this time she should have known the palace well, well enough at least, to find her way through it to the rooms she was searching for, and here she now was, wandering through its empty, silent corridors lost and frightened like some forgotten child. Was that what she was, she wondered, a child forgotten and forsaken, deserted in the heat of the battle as she'd been so many times in the past? A child left to walk amongst these ruins in search of something that was more likely to be her damnation than her savior. A lost, scared child. She thought of the last time she'd seen Heero, after the Mariemaia incident—had that not been what he'd tried to tell her, that she was only a broken child, that he himself was one, too?

Relena stumbled over a large stone of marble from a fallen pillar. She let out some incoherent wordless cry and as her own voice echoed back to her she thought she heard the underlying sound of approaching footsteps.

The palace of Thessaloníki was supposed to be deserted but if there were to be one who remained there, it would be the man she had come here to find.

"Treize?" she called into the dark corridor behind her. "If you're still here, answer me."

Nothing, no reply. She shook off the feeling that she was being followed and went on.

The palace was silent as the house of the dead, still and dusty as though it had not been occupied in years. It had been practically overrun by soldiers only days ago, she knew. The dust had come from the walls and the ceilings when the palace had been attacked, bombed by the counteroffensive and temporarily seized by a battalion of mobile suits. She had not heard of a Gundam being sighted during the siege. There was still a chance that her brother had not been there.

She came at last to a corridor she recognized, the one that would curve and end in the staircase that would take her to Treize's suites, to the room he used as his office if he could not be found there. He had to still be here, the dramatic leader falling with his kingdom. There was nowhere else he could have gone.

The carpet that ran the length of the corridor was ruined, coated in dust and ash, blanketed in fallen shards of glass and crystal. A painting lay torn and scratched on the floor.

"Treize?" she cried out again, unable to mask the desperation in her voice. It bled from her tongue as though from a mortal wound. "It's not too late to stop this. This battle is completely meaningless!"

Still no answer. Dear God, if he were still here, surely he could hear her.

She went on through the corridor, unaware that the skirt of her dress had been ripped as she pushed and fell her way through the rubble, that one side of her hair was caked with drying blood from a fresh scratch on her cheek. She looked like a disillusioned wanderer stumbling toward the gates of Hell.

_My poppet, welcome to your bed. _

_Is Kushrenada here?_

_Not he, tomorrow he must lose his life to war, my dear. _

"Treize, you must withdraw. There is no point to this war."

Something sharp pierced the blue silk of her dress and grazed her leg. She gave it no notice.

"Treize, please, if you can hear me, answer me!"

Her vision blurred suddenly, forcing her to stop. Something warm started to drip down her face. Blood. No, not blood. Tears. She couldn't cry now, not until she had found him, not until she had made him break his infuriating silence and tell her why he was doing this. Had he been planning this whole gruesome war when he had appeared to her in Sanq and made her aware of his survival, when he had told her that she could now be the kingdom's salvation? Had he known when she had so silently, without hesitation, accepted him into her bed?

"Treize, Milliardo is out there fighting at this moment! Do you want him to die along with those soldiers?" Could she really rely on his past friendship with her brother to elicit a response from him?

The corridor curved up ahead. Ignoring the sudden pain in her leg, she ran to the end of it with fleeting thoughts of them all running through her tired mind. Treize, hiding in the shadows perhaps, or maybe following behind her—

–_for one brief moment, those footsteps again—_

Milliardo, fighting in a worthless battle outside the kingdom, placing his life on the line for her and her precious pacifism once again, the beautiful brother she'd never really known. Miss Noin, wherever she was now, still able to conceal the fact that she carried the prince's child, willing to follow him into the inferno of Hell just to be near him. Rhyn, still in the palace at Sanq, unable to fight but clinging nonetheless to some inexplicable sense of loyalty. All of them, all the others, all dying in a meaningless war. Miss Dorothy, hurriedly returning to Morocco despite the order to ground all aircraft, perhaps flying over the scene of a battle—

She reached the end of the corridor. Her feet came together in an abrupt halt, the heels of her of her shoes making a loud, hard _clack_ that echoed in the silent palace. Her hand went to her throat; her mouth fell open and her eyes widened so much that they felt as though they would fall from their sockets. The staircase that should have been on the other side of the great lobby was gone. The southern wall had been knocked out and where the splintered marble floor ended lay only the cold, burnt ground of the palace lawn. "My God, " she whispered reverently, then she repeated it. Moments later she would become aware that the words were still leaving her lips, that she was yelling it now, her own voice carrying back to her on the chaotic emptiness that surrounded her: _my God, my God, mygod, MYGOD MYGOD_—

She found herself kneeling in the ruins, her knees cut and bleeding, her dress torn, her hands running through the ashes that coated the floor. Her white, porcelain pacifist hands dusted in the bloodless remnants of war.

"My God," she cried again, and now the tears did come, hotly acidic, burning her face as they rolled down toward her gray-powdered hands. "I didn't…I can't…I cannot…Milliardo…"

"Stop it, Relena."

Her breath caught in her throat. That voice—

"Heero?"

She turned and indeed he was there, Heero, her dark one, looking as soulless and empty as ever he had.

"Heero." She tried to stand, could not. The pain in her legs was too much.

He stood only a few feet away from her, like some angel of death waiting to bear her away. His eyes were still cold and calculating as they had been the last time she had seen him as he looked down at her. It was only then that she realized he was covered in blood. His throat was smeared wildly with it, his white shirt was torn, shredded even, and the bloodied tatters of it—like those of her own dress—floated up toward his face in the slight wintry breeze.

He knelt down before her and after a moment of reluctance, he took her into his arms. She sank into him willingly, never fully realizing that this was their first real embrace, holding him to her as she had so longed to do in the past.

"Relena," he said quietly. His voice was still utterly monotonous.

"Heero, you're hurt," she was finally able to say, pulling away from him just enough to see the blood that stained his half-exposed chest. "You're bleeding."

"The blood isn't mine."

She started to ask where it had come from then stopped before she could speak a word. She didn't want to know what had happened, didn't want to know whose blood it was or how he had become so drenched in it. She only wanted to remain there among the ruins with him, safe in the circle of his arms.

"Had you been following me, Heero?" she asked, allowing her eyes to fall closed. Don't look at the ruins, the broken debris, the ashes that covered everything like the shroud of death. Best not to ask. Best to think of only Heero, of this embrace. Don't ask questions. Don't wonder why. Don't remember what it was like to watch him before any of this happened, not knowing who he was, intrigued by the very sound of his name. Just be here with him, for whatever it all means. Just—

_Believe in me, Relena. _

The comforting human heat of him, the warmth of his arms as they held her, warm but still somehow cold. The only real sign of humanity in him.

_This is meaningless_, she thought, letting her face fall onto his shoulder. The warm scent of blood all around him. _This is just as meaningless as the war that was bred here. This will neither begin nor end anything. In the span of our lives, this moment will not matter at all. This is nothing. _

Lying against him now. _My poppet, welcome to your bed. _

_Utterly meaningless. Worthless. So worthless, yet I would give up the rest of my life to stay here like this. Perhaps this is why Milliardo cannot separate himself from war. He has fallen in love with its meaninglessness._

_Heero._

"You shouldn't be here, Relena," he said.

She didn't reply. She didn't need to.

_I'll never hurt anyone ever again. _

"Heero," she whispered. She was crying again, harder this time, and for once she didn't care.

"Don't do that." As if to contradict the coldness of his voice, he reached up and brushed away a fresh-fallen tear from her cheek.

So meaningless, all of it.

She met his eyes again finally. They did not change as he leaned forward, nor did they when she allowed herself for one brief moment to touch the side of his face.

He leaned in until his lips were almost touching her tear-streaked cheek, then at the very second before he could kiss her he lowered his head and brought his lips to hers. She stiffened in his arms but only for a moment. Her arms pulled tighter about him as though to let go of him would be to let go of her own life. She returned his soft, chaste kiss with all the unrestrained emotion she had felt for him in the past, and he did not try to pull away.

At last the kiss ended. Heero's arms fell away from her immediately and he stood up as though to leave. "Heero?"

"Hai."

"Why did you do that?"

No hesitation. "Because you needed it." He took her hand assisted her to her feet. "Do you think you can walk now."

She nodded, no longer able to look him full in the eye. "I think so."

He released her, walked toward the great gaping opening in the palace's walls.

"Heero," she called after him, taking a few steps forward.

He halted, waited.

"Where are you going, Heero?"

"Where I'm needed," he replied simply.

"Are you going to Sanq?"

"The battle is never supposed to enter the kingdom." He started to walk off. She lunged after him, catching him by the wrist.

"Heero, please, tell me where you're going."

He looked down at her. After a minute or so he replied, "Vólos. That's where the battle will continue to take place. If you're that concerned about Zechs, you can find him there."

He pulled away from her, and this time she did nothing to stop him. She watched silently as he left her, perhaps for the last time.

_Go after him,_ her mind raged as his figure became little more than a shadow in the encroaching twilight. _This is Heero, leaving again, the same Heero you so dearly loved those short years ago. Go after him. _

But in the end, she did not. He disappeared in the darkness, and soon all that could be seen outside was the lights from the city below. It didn't matter anyway. Whatever she had once felt for him, it was gone now, and she could now freely admit this to herself. She didn't love him anymore, and perhaps she never had, not in any way that counted, at least. This cause was simply too meaningless to chase after.

By the time she left the palace, this ruined queen, the wind had begun to blow and she could feel, strangely enough, a slight smile upon her face.

It was all about to end, for better, for worse, it was all about to end. She could feel it somehow.

**Author's Notes:** It probably goes without saying that this was my favorite chapter to write. Aphrodite was my favorite original character, and many times I debated over whether or not Heero should actually succeed in killing her; it was really quite hard for me to part with her. As are most of my violent death scenes, this one was written to the Beatles' "Long Long Long." There is a bit more involving Aphrodite in the follow-up to Ballad that I wrote two years ago, entitled "The Remnants of War," which will probably be appearing on this site once I've re-edited Ballad.

This note was originally attached to the previous chapter for some reason, but will be removed upon re-editing: The scene betwixt Relena and Heero is not meant to be interpreted as a romantic interlude. It is my personal interpretation from the series that Relena's feelings for Heero were never anything more than a simple (albeit melodramatic, on her part) schoolgirl infatuation with the dark, mysterious new boy, and that Heero never requited her. What happens in this chapter is simply an act of subtle desperation, not for each other, but merely to attain the sense that they are both, in fact, still alive after what they have both just respectively seen and experienced. On a side note, however, I must say that I've always rather liked the idea of Heero and a saner Aphrodite as a couple . . .


	24. Chapter Twenty Three

_Chapter Twenty Three_

**I**

He found the base quieter than expected, all but completely deserted outside and looking almost as desolate as the production base in Spain. None of this mattered to him. He realized carelessly, as he stumbled toward the shadowed building, that all of this had ceased to matter.

The pain in his arm, in his chest, had worsened with the cold as he again drew near to the ocean. He was acutely aware of it now, every cut, every stretched muscle, every bruise. Funny how he hadn't been aware of these injuries when they occurred.

The door — one of many side entrances — opened slowly, squeakily, announcing his stumbling presence to the silence of the woods, and shut immediately behind him.

After all he had seen in the course of the evening that seemed now to have no end, it was not noticeable, not to him, at least, that he cried out when the hand fell upon his shoulder.

His shrill, panicked voice fell to a hush. "_Sakura._"

He was turned around like a lifeless rag doll and found himself looking up into the strangely knowing eyes of Odin Lowe.

"What the hell happened to you." It was not a question but a calm statement. Heero stumbled and Odin caught him, holding him up as he had not needed to do since Heero had been a newly-orphaned child called Takeru and Odin had been his mother's lover.

"How did you–"

Odin began to guide him down through the corridors. "You've not had much luck with security cameras, have you? You passed another one upon entering the premises."

The only response he could muster was a groan.

"Are you certain you weren't followed?"

He nodded.

Odin, without pause, glanced down at him. "I trust the problem was eliminated then," he said. "I will not ask how you accomplished that."

He gave a slight nod and fell into full submission.

They at last, after several minutes of silent walking, came to a room deep within the bowels of the base where Odin stopped and knocked quietly upon the door. It was opened only a moment later, not to his surprise, by none other than Yuan-Chen. He was vaguely aware of some horribly cynical thought forming in his mind at the sight of the Chinese man's familiar smile.

"I did not expect you so early, Takeru," he said, studying the torn, bloody clothes and his bruised wild-eyed countenance. "Likewise I did not expect you to be this badly in need of medical attention." He stepped away from the door and ushered him in. Odin, after giving a slight nod to Yuan-Chen, left to attend to other business.

He allowed himself to be led into an adjacent room, too weak and now too apathetic to protest. Yuan-Chen switched on a lamp and instructed him to stand by it. It was not until then that he became aware of the other man lying on the sofa, only a few feet away from him.

He was not much older than Heero, perhaps only nineteen or twenty, the epitome of the young Northern European male. His eyes were closed in sleep and his boyish face bore no explanation other than a slight upturn of the mouth, and the sight of him was altogether so serene that Heero, dazed still after all that had befallen him, was inexplicably drawn to touch him.

He drew his hand away as Yuan-Chen returned, having silently left a moment ago to retrieve an assortment of medical supplies.

The Chinese man laughed softly upon seeing what he had interrupted. "He does not wake easily. Our voices will not disturb him."

"Who the hell is he."

"Are you inquiring his name or his function in the counteroffensive?"

He repressed a grunt.

Yuan-Chen opened the black bag and began rummaging through its contents. "His name is Rhyn Tolkien," he said without glancing at either of them, as behind him the man on the sofa began to speak.

Heero immediately jumped aside as Yuan-Chen gave another soft laugh. "He sings often when he sleeps," he said, smiling almost endearingly at the form of the sleeping boy. "Pay no attention to him, unless you would like to hear him. He has quite a pleasant voice." From the bag he extracted a roll of bandages and a spool of surgical thread. "He, along with yourself, Takeru, is one of the top computer analysts of the organization. Almost every piece of information on the Gemini that you have used was supplied by him."

"Military training."

Yuan-Chen plucked a needle from the depths of the bag. "No."

"Then what kind."

"Opera." He smiled and instructed Heero to remove his tattered shirt. "His mother was an opera singer. She taught him well before her arrest. You met him once, Takeru, though you were too young at the time to remember. His parents were great followers of Sakura."

"Hn." That name, that blessed, accursed name, that face of an angel, not again—

An image of that face, smudged with dirt and streaked with blood. The permanent hint of a smile upon her mouth twisting into a scowl of pain.

The faint singing had stopped. Heero glanced back down at the sleeping Rhyn and found him no longer asleep at all but struggling to wake, blinking his eyes rapidly to force them to remain open. His eyes, he saw, were his only feature that lessened his face's boyishness; such solemn, aware eyes.

"Do you want me to leave you two alone, Chen-love?" he asked thickly, his tongue weighed still by sleep. He glanced at Heero's shirtless body. "Or can I join in too?"

Heero stifled the faint expression of disgust that threatened to come upon his face.

Yuan-Chen seemed to take no notice of the perverse innuendo as he continued to inspect Heero's numerous injuries. "I did not think you would be awake so soon," he said to Rhyn after a moment, reaching for the needle and the spool. "Do you recognize who this is?"

The initial sting of the needle's entrance behind his ribcage. He had not been aware of receiving a wound there.

Rhyn stood up from the sofa and studied him as closely as Yuan-Chen had. "It would appear to me," he said in a heavy British accent that Heero only now realized was natural, scratching his chin in mock scrutiny, "that the specimen we have here before us is a young male of obvious Oriental descent, approximately seventeen to twenty-five years old, dark hair, blu–"

"This is Takeru," Yuan-Chen interrupted, drawing tight the next stitch.

Rhyn was silenced at the name. For a moment his only reaction was an open-mouthed stare, then he bowed and knelt dramatically on the floor. "Well, lovely-chan-love, may I then worship at your feet?"

Another sting from the needle. The boyish face, those solemn eyes staring up at him, and now the sound of his own name echoing in his clouded mind, not the one he had for so long masqueraded under but the one given to him at birth by one who had commanded the hearts of so many, whom so many had loved, but God he could barely remember her, _God he could not—_

"Ugh…ugh…" He stepped back once, twice, and unable to keep his balance now, he could feel his legs giving out beneath him, and suddenly he could see the shadowed walls falling in around him, upon him, and now with one last fleeting thought he realized the walls were not falling, he was the one falling, even as the hands caught him before his head could graze the floor.

He saw as his vision clouded, a quick image of Rhyn's face, much closer now for it was Rhyn who held him, and he heard a voice, so distant and yet so very much like his own—

"Please don't ever say that name again."

The words faded into silence as he lost consciousness.

**Author's Notes:** Ah, more Heero torture. It's occurred to me rereading this chapter that the brief scene between Heero and the sleeping Rhyn is slightly homoerotic, but I suppose I couldn't resist. It, too, was intended as another surreal moment in what is possibly the worst night of Heero's life, without any sexual over- or undertones, but if somebody out there wants to read more into it, feel free to do so. Rhyn is quite a pretty boy, after all.

There is only one chapter left, followed by the epilogue. I have decided to post Remnants on this site, so it should be appearing here soon. Everything will be explained in the following chapters.


	25. Chapter Twenty Four

_Chapter Twenty Four_

**I**

He found Odin outside the base, standing at the edge of the ruined platform, his back to the world and his face to the sea. Zechs's approach was long preceded by the sound of his footsteps but Odin gave no sign that he heard.

The man's eyes were placidly closed and his face so calm that he seemed as though a standing corpse, and for a moment Zechs was more willing to turn around and leave than he was to interrupt.

"Marquise," Odin said when he neared him, not even blinking to see who had sought him. "To what do I owe the great honor of your visit?"

"I want to go to the Sanq Kingdom."

Though his eyes remained closed, a smile touched at the corners of his mouth. "What is it, Prince? Are you afraid your sister's trite words and petty speeches won't be enough to hold off an army? Are you afraid her trembling reassurances won't be enough to keep men from dying outside the luxury she's hidden herself in? Perhaps it is time, Prince, that the Queen learns these things for herself."

"The casualties are too high."

Odin opened his eyes, raised his brow. "Are they? And what do you propose to do about it, Prince? Are you going to march into the front lines brandishing your royal sword and with one word from your princely tongue frighten away those who would carry off the fair maiden?"

"The Epyon–"

"Is not yet needed."

"Then when are you going to employ the system?"

Odin glanced at him. "Are you referring to the one that would disable certain battalions of the Gemini?"

He gave a slight, impatient nod.

"It was discovered and deactivated."

_How could he say it so calmly, so curtly?_ "Couldn't Rhyn–"

Odin shook his head. "Rhyn has officially disassociated himself from this war. He is already aware of the outcome. If you wish to say any farewells to him, Marquise, I would suggest you do it now. He will be returning with Marguerite to Paris soon."

"Then when will the Epyon be needed?" He found himself no longer able to conceal the graveled anger that rose in his voice, yet Odin seemed to give this no notice.

Odin withdrew from his coat pocket a pack of cigarettes, lit one as calmly as one in discussion of the weather. "Not until the final battle. There will be yet another, on the borders of Sanq, shortly following the death of Treize Kushrenada, ending with the announcement of his assassination."

He felt his eyes narrow. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that you are not going to the Sanq Kingdom. Thessaloníki is where you are needed most at the moment, fair Prince."

"There's nothing in Thessaloníki," he growled, and for the first time he wished sincerely that he could kill this man, this incorrigible devil, simply withdraw his pistol in one swift, graceful maneuver and fire a single bullet into his cryptic brain.

Odin nodded in agreement. "Precisely. There is nothing there to distract you from what you are doing."

"Which will be?"

"You will know when you get there you will go to the base–"

Before he could think to stop himself, Zechs lunged at him. Odin caught him instantly by the wrist as a father would a disobedient child and pushed him up against the wall.

"You will go to the base in Thessaloníki," he continued, unabated, "and you will find what you are needed for there. If you still retain a good stomach for this war after you've accomplished your errand there, you may then go to the kingdom. Your Gundam will be waiting for you there."

Zechs tried to pull away from him, could not.

"So you won't be too terribly surprised should you go into battle, the Zero system of the Epyon has been deactivated." He pulled Zechs away from the wall and shoved him forward. Zechs again ran at him and Odin prevented further assault with a single blow.

"You know better than this, Marquise," he said, calmly flicking the cigarette away. He turned his back, providing Zechs the perfect opportunity for assault.

He did not. Gathering his composure again, he rose to his feet and gave a brief, solemn nod. "Understood."

"Is it?"

"Yes."

Odin waved him away with a simple gesture of his scarred hand. "Then go. We don't have very much time left, Marquise."

_Until what_?

"Of course." He pivoted on the heels of his boots and walked toward the edge of the platform, slowly and deliberately as a man through a cemetery.

"You will understand when you get there," Odin called before he ducked into the forest.

Zechs, as though nothing more than a doll performing from mere routine, merely nodded and walked on.

**II**

The base, which he had not seen sine he had discovered the affair once held between Treize and his sister, was now but a ruined structure of stone and ash, and yet the sight of it strangely did not faze him. He thought nothing of its ruination as he approached it, carried onward not by his own force of will but rather from some great numbness that granted him the mercy of not thinking of these things, and all detail of these cold, ashen remains was lost upon him.

He entered the base not by way of a door but through a crevice that had been broken into a wall.

_You will understand when you get there._

As he moved through the halls, he strangely gave no thought either to what had happened here or to the battle that was currently being waged within the borders of his kingdom. He did not think of Odin's cryptic words or the strange sense that had overcome him after that encounter, the sense that he would perhaps never see the man again after that; he did not think of the pilot whom he knew was in Sanq, using a weapon perhaps greater than any cockpit system designed for this to combat an army that now seemed almost unlimited in strength. He did not think of the boy he had known briefly during this conflict whom he had only now begun to comprehend or of Rhyn's sudden decision to withdraw from this war. Even Lucrezia did not enter his thoughts. Perhaps this was all for the best.

He turned a corner and was immediately halted by the sight of another man standing at the opposite end of the hall. Treize turned and smiled when he saw him. "I was beginning to believe you would neglect to fulfill this part of your role, Milliardo," he called, and Zechs, as though entranced by his devil's voice, began walking toward him.

_You will understand when you get there._

Treize's hands moved from behind his back, one holding nothing and the other curled around an elegant pistol.

Quickly though without thought, Zechs withdrew his own gun from his coat, aiming it at the man's head. His finger tightened on the trigger. At the last moment something within him — some damnable trace of loyalty flickering within his heart like a dying flame, perhaps — protested and his hand pulled downward, firing the shot into Treize's abdomen.

Treize took a step back, another. His hand went to the wound. He coughed gently into his other hand — simply coughed — and when that hand fell away, it was covered in blood. "Thank you, Milliardo," he said, then he collapsed. The gun fell from Zechs's hand and he went to where the many lay, his fallen opponent, his fallen friend.

_You will understand when you get there. _

Indeed, perhaps he did.

Treize was sprawled gracefully over the floor, his blood flowing between his fingers, pooling on the marble beneath him; another thin stream of blood poured over the side of his mouth. He looked up at Zechs with piercing, unglazed, alive eyes, eyes that suddenly seemed to hold some dire knowledge Zechs was not sure he wanted.

"Thank you," he said again. "It can end now."

Zechs tried to speak, could not. He knelt at Treize's side and examined the wound he had inflicted.

Treize laughed softly. "What is it, Milliardo? You look like death warmed over, and unless my nervous system has failed me already, you're trembling. It was not a well-placed shot, I admit, but it will serve as a good start. Finish it, Milliardo. Go on. Finish it, and then stand over my body victoriously like the hero you are. This is what you wanted, Milliardo, what you've wanted since Odin Lowe informed you of my survival. My death. Take it now."

"I–" He began, then stopped. He looked back down at his hands. They were not covered in Treize's blood but rather _soaked_ in it.

"Do you like to examine the blood that stains your hands, Milliardo? Was that your vice in battle, in murder, just as I liked to know the names of those I killed? Did you want to see their blood?" His voice — amused in spite of the pain — was piercing, and what cut Zechs the most to hear it was that there was no malice in it; rather, he spoke endearingly as though to a friend.

Zechs looked at him. Treize stared directly into his eyes and smiled, and the smile was warm, commiserating, understanding.

"I was never your enemy, Milliardo," he said. "I was never your opponent. I never meant you — any of you — any harm. I was never going to remove your sister from power. I was never going to allow your arrest or execution, just as I was never going to allow the execution of that soldier who stayed in the palace after his escape. I was the one who released him. I was never going to harm you, Milliardo. How could I, after all that the two of us had withstood together? We truly have endured, Milliardo. We have endured as so few human beings before us have." He paused, studying the skeptical expression on Zechs's face, and again he laughed. "Of course, some had to die. That is inevitable in any kind of war. There must always be a sacrifice. This kind of war requires a sacrifice of life. Many have died, and before this battle truly ends many more will. Most of those needed to die were not to be great leaders but rather nameless soldiers, for it is they for whom the hearts of the people cry. However, as in any great war, one of the leaders must die. Odin Lowe is to remain alive, if this war will have the most beneficial outcome."

"The most beneficial outcome," Zechs repeated numbly.

"But to achieve that, there has always been the necessity for a sacrifice. The choice for this great sacrifice I had narrowed down to only you or myself, Milliardo." He coughed again, a soft, dry rasp coated by blood. "You've served your purpose well. I expected nothing less of you, and I thank you for all you've done to bring about this end."

Zechs started to speak, could not. It would have been a sign of weakness if he covered his ears to deafen himself to what he knew Treize was about to say but he was almost willing to display such a sign for once, had not some part of him, the part that had always remained Treize's friend throughout it all, forbidden it.

"The people must be made weary of fighting," Treize continued hoarsely. "So weary that they would rather work for some compromise than engage in another war. Mankind has seen enough wars, and most of the time those wars came down to being only with one's self, not some tangible enemy. Everything is a war, everything within a man. It's when those personal wars are directed at an outside force that a technical battle is begun. Man fights with himself and eventually comes to some conclusion, whether it is what he originally set out to find or not. But these technical wars, these battles that go down in history as such, they have no conclusion. Soldiers die and a new force comes into power, only to be defeated and replaced with another in a few years' time. Men walk away from these battlefields without knowing why they were there in the first place. It is this kind of war that must be prevented. Simply fighting while the people look on is ineffectual. We both learned that early on. The people must be placed down amongst the dead of wars past, and they must have their hands and minds forever tainted by the blood shed for their ideals. You've already accomplished that, Milliardo. I cannot commend you enough for the path you took with the White Fang.

"The people walked away from that battle with the horror of it branded into their memories. Both Earth and space lived in peace for some time, but then that peace was turned into a sense of false security. Such falsities are a breeding ground for new battles."

Zechs nodded as a child would.

"It was a shared misconception that the people's new hatred of war would be enough to prevent another one. Peace would indeed last for some time following the end of the war, but unless more desperate measures were taken, their will to fight would become strong again. They had already been horrified, but the necessary complement was to add anger and weariness to their horror."

"Put them through one war and then hit them with additional battles they didn't want," Zechs affirmed.

Treize favored him with a weak smile. "I began making preparations for the next battle immediately after the Eve Wars. Odin Lowe met with me once, after hearing rumors of what I was doing. It would probably be more accurate to say that he made himself known to me. He needed no propositions or offers or requests. He understood what I meant to do immediately, and I was rather surprised to discover later that he would rise as my opponent in this war."

"You…you…" The words refused to leave his damnable mouth.

"The first stage of this war was to occur within one year of the Eve Wars, but those plans were made null and void when someone else took my place."

"Mariemaia," he whispered dumbly, and Treize gave what he could muster of a warm smile.

"Yes. And ultimately it was your own child who influenced my decision of which of us was to be the great sacrifice in this war."

Zechs's eyes narrowed in confusion.

"Mariemaia will not become, as you previously feared, another Milliardo Peacecraft, and I will not make one of you and Miss Noin's child." He fell silent and his eyes momentarily closed. "I did all that was needed, didn't I, Milliardo?" Again Treize bestowed him with a gracious smile. "I corrupted those who could be corrupted and made enemies of those who could not be. I have blemished the great virginal Queen of Sanq. I personally orchestrated the bombing of the train in Austria, as well as the attack in Luxembourg. I did everything I could to become the great antagonist of this war, to represent all that was foul about war as you briefly did in the Eve Wars. And you" —he reached up and a trembling hand touched the side of Zechs's face— "you did everything you could to oppose me. I thank you, Milliardo Peacecraft, my eternal friend."

Zechs was too stunned to speak.

Another thin trickle of blood spilled over the side of Treize's mouth.

"Take off your gloves, Milliardo," he said through the pooling blood. "I want to see something."

Zechs, obediently as he had when Treize had requested something of him when they were children, nodded and did so.

Treize stared wonderingly at his bared hands for several minutes, examining them and smiling as though he saw something truly miraculous in them. "Your hands aren't stained by blood at all, Milliardo," he said, and again he coughed.

"Finish it, Milliardo," he choked. "Finish this and then finish the war that continues beyond this place. I have no use in the path the world is taking. Send me to my grave in peace."

He swallowed. "I…no….I cannot…" And yet there emerged another part of his conscience, perhaps the part that understood this faltering, unfinished speech the most, and he found himself rising, retrieving the gun Treize had dropped when he had fallen.

Treize smiled. "You eternally have my love for this, Milliardo."

He cocked the gun.

"You have to finish it, Milliardo. If this is not properly finished, the world learns nothing from it. Please, Prince…do it. Everything is a war, Milliardo. These paltry battles are only a small part of it all. This war will end with my death. This war ends now, Milliardo." He closed his eyes and waited with a small, placid smile.

His finger tightened on the trigger. At the last moment something within him — _some damnable trace of loyalty flickering within his heart like a dying flame, perhaps _— protested and—

He squeezed the trigger, firing the bullet into Treize's brain and thus ending his life, thus facilitating the end of this war.

The gun slipped from his grip. For a moment he could only stare at the bloody, graceful thing that had only moments ago been Treize Kushrenada, then he fell against the still-warm body, closing his own eyes in grief as a single warm droplet rolled down his face.

**III**

"Mr. Marquise, are you sure you want to do this?"

He shrugged past the soldier, proceeded toward the hangar where he knew the Gundam was concealed.

The soldier followed him, managed to get in front of him. "Mr. Marquise, you don't look so–"

"Get the hell out of my way." He shoved at the man, pushed him against the wall.

The imbecile seemed possessed of enough sense to remain there.

He entered the hangar; his eyes immediately through the their bloodshot sheen went to the great crimson monolith restrained against the wall.

_My refuge, my defeat._

Somewhere within the back of his mind he realized that the restraints next to those of the Epyon, too large and formidable to have been used for a mere mobile suit, were empty.

He walked, dazed, numbly as though held within some unearthly trance toward the great machine, unaware of the soldiers around him watching. For a brief moment there was hesitation, a realization of what he was doing and that he could not do it, a realization that he was truly at this very moment losing his mind as surely as he would if he did this, and then again there was numbness, and he ascended into the cockpit.

_What have I done, what have I done, how could I how could I not have known this how—_

_Treize—_

The darkness within the cockpit was cold and empty and inviting, and it eased his sanity away from his troubled mind as not even the numbness had yet been able to do. He collapsed weakly into the seat, shuddering as his moist face was again streaked by the tears that had constantly assaulted his eyes since he had pulled the trigger a second and final time. _Treize—_

_Your hands aren't stained with blood at all, Milliardo. _

_Seraphs and saints with one great voice welcomed that soul that knew not fear—_

"Mr. Marquise."

A voice, dull and disembodied as though spoken by the air itself. After a stunned moment he realized that it had come from the central communications device.

"What," he said, attempting futilely to sound like the stern soldier he was reputed to be and failing miserably.

There was a perplexed silence, and audible note of wonder that the former Lightning Count should before battle sound more like a frightened child than a fierce warrior.

"You'll want your flight course twenty degrees more to the north."

"Thank you," he mumbled, and without being fully aware of what he was doing he switched off the communication line.

_This war ends now, Milliardo._

_This war ends now._

"Then let it, damn you," he growled to nothing and to no one, to the air, to a memory, to a specter that would perhaps haunt him until he became as it was.

He lifted the helmet onto his head and activated the machine.

**IV**

His hands tightened on the controls, loosened. Another suit exploded before him, another. The movement of the gundam was, at his numb command, not graceful but grace itself, grace and fluidity, silk upon water, a caress upon a lover's flesh. It was not the deaths that played out before his eyes that so held his childish fascination but the sheer ease with which he manipulated the god-like machine. And was it indeed this that they saw, all of them, in those tremulous moment before their deaths: a crimson god, merciless and silent, bestowing upon them harsh judgement for their ignorant transgressions? Was this how he seemed to them as he cut them down? A god without divinity?

No matter. What was it all but more blood spilt upon his trembling hands, more lives in whose taking he would be surely damned into Hell? Become part of the gundam, not its pilot but another one of its components. Become that grace and fluidity, become the soldier, the beast, the monster stained in blood—

He shouted a curse at them all and swung the machine to the right, bisecting another opposing suit. More blood upon his hands, more souls sent prematurely to their graves, and strangely it did not matter to him. He had already slain so many; these could not make a difference.

_Treize I am so sorry Treize please forgive me please forgive me I—_

"Zechs, that's the last one."

He halted, shivering, drenched in his own perspiration, and his eyes drifted to the viewing portal.

The Wing Zero. The only machine that could ever play an angel to his god. The only pilot who could ever truly battle against him.

"Pull back, Zechs. That was the last one." Such a dull, monotonous voice. He realized that when he had shut off the main communication device, he had neglected to in turn shut off the one that served as a line between suits.

"Zechs."

_Oh God Treize what have I done what am I doing—_

The gundam before him, unmoving, waiting.

_Please I cannot do this anymore._

He felt his hands, as though acting on a will apart from what remained of his own, move toward the control that would activate the system. He did not understand then why he employed the system, nor would he ever. After that moment he, in the dazed, horror-stricken state that had held him since what he had done in Thessaloniki, would have no memory of succumbing.

_I cannot do this._

_Zero system activated_

The gundam before him, a formidable figure of metallic alloys that had made it into a being from Hell itself. Was the pilot truly waiting for him? Why should that matter? Their battle would be finished in some way eventually.

His numb body fell back against the seat and he sighed as though in surrender.

"Zechs, what are you doing."

His eyes opened; his hand tightened again on the controls. Another mobile suit — not the last one, after all — advanced upon him, momentarily obstructing his view of the gundam. Without consciousness of what he was doing, he brought the heat rod down, slicing the suit in half even as its pilot screamed at the sight of his oncoming death.

He advanced toward the gundam. Let it all end now, every battle. He cannot do this anymore.

_The pilot's face before him, not as it was now but as it had been the first time he had seen it, set and without expression as he calmly pressed the button that would self-destruct his own Gundam. Only a boy, this pilot, only a mere boy, a child who should have known nothing of war or of destruction. Another Milliardo Peacecraft. _

The pilot, almost too late, realized what was happening and drew back as the Epyon's heat rod came down in front of him.

_So strong, this soldier. So much stronger than Zechs himself._

"I still…haven't acknowledged that…that I'm one of the…of the weak," he faltered, swinging at the Wing Zero again as the pilot moved to defend himself. "I will not acknowledge it."

A calm shout above the clamor of clashing metal: "_What the hell are you doing_."

_Another war, another unfinished battle. He had come so close to being truly defeated by the boy, so strong was his opponent. Inhumanly strong and yet was it that strength that drove him onward in a fight? Was it that or was it all the scars that had given him this strength? _

"Zechs."

He gave a soft laugh and assaulted the gundam again. The boy moved to block him and almost did not move quickly enough.

_Another war, another battle, it was all happening too quickly. All of their faces before him: Lucrezia, the pilot, Treize, Odin, the woman in the photograph—_

"I am not your enemy," he responded to the voice, shouting and lunging at the machine again. "I am not your enemy!"

"Zechs, stop this!"

_Click click of the beads, the glimmer of silver in the candlelight._

_I am not your enemy._

_Odin's calm voice, his eyes turned away. A glance at a photograph and the momentary angered expression upon his face._

_I am not your enemy._

_The woman's eyes, her enigmatic face, her undoubtedly brutal death._

_I am not your enemy._

_The child in the woman's arms, the beautiful Asian boy with strangely blue eyes._

_I am not your enemy please God I am not your enemy I am not your fucking enemy I can't be—_

"_I am not your enemy!_" he shouted at the boy. He was suddenly aware of the inexplicable streams of blood that were running down his face. _I am not your enemy. I am not. _His hand found the self-destruct switch and hit it fiercely.

_Treize—_

_This is the way the prince dies, not with a bow but a scream._

The Epyon did not respond. He pressed the switch again and still nothing happened.

He brought the heat rod down at the center of the Wing Zero, where the cockpit was located. The pilot gave further assault, forcing the Epyon, even in its resistance backward.

_I am not your enemy. _

_This is the way that the prince dies—_

A fresh trickle of blood ran into his eye. "Damn you, Yuy, let this end now."

_This is the way the prince dies—_

Heero brought his own weapon down and Zechs parried this move as though in refusal to be defeated.

_This is the way that the prince dies—_

At the last moment Zechs ceased his resistance and gave a soft smile as the arm of the Wing Zero again came down, filling the cockpit with an instantaneous heat as the fiery light began to slice through it.

_Not with a scream but surrender. _

_He truly was no one's enemy, after all. _

He weakly lifted the helmet from his head and felt the quietest laugh escape his lips as the burning darkness consumed him.

**Author's Notes: **I'm sure a good deal of you had already arrived at the conclusion presented in this chapter. Much in the same manner as Zechs when he headed the White Fang, Treize's uncharacteristic actions throughout this story have all been part of his plan to become the next great antagonist to peace. Odin has actually been his accomplice all this time, though he has continued to act on his own terms. Some of you may like this ending to the war while I'm sure some also hate it, but it is nonetheless the only ending I have ever conceived for it. Treize dies as a defamed gentleman and Zechs casts away one more opportunity to redeem himself by once again allowing himself to lose control. I wanted their final conversation to be rooted in their past friendship rather than their new rivalry, as I feel that even under these circumstances, they still do posses a very great love for each other.

On a lighter note before proceeding on to the epilogue, I once again referenced a T.S. Eliot poem in this chapter. I find that his work suits Zechs as well as John Davidson's _A Ballad of Hell_ suits Heero for me. Perhaps someday I'll write another Zechs fic based on one of Eliot's poems. He was, quite simply, a literary genius.


	26. Epilogue

_Epilogue_

A true war, by the standards of those involved rather than the eager spectators, does not end quietly, nor does it end with the clashing of armor as one army conquers another. A conclusion is not signified by the speeches of leaders or the surrender of the defeated, and the final moments are not marred by the victorious cries of triumph. No flags are planted and no palaces are taken, and, as in all such events, the Earth does not cease in its revolution. These things are myth, are mere phantoms cast by idealism.

The end of a war comes softly. It fades into the light of the slowly-rising morn like a lingering shadow; it ebbs as a gentle dream from the resting mind. Hell falls briefly silent and the voices of the seraphs and the saints grow quiet, and all falls away as the blood seeps into the ground like dew into the gossamer of a child's innocent fantasy.

A true war ends softly.

War is a lover, and peace is its silent spouse. The passion of war is futile in the absence of its following peace and likewise peace inevitably becomes mundane without a war to complement it. And if indeed everything is a war, then likewise all roads, whether intended good or in ill, will eventually lead to some kind of peace.

In the soft ending of the war that had, for a few weeks that despite their brevity held the world in utter terror, plagued the Southern European continent, the casualties would never be accurately totaled, the damages never accurately calculated, and there would certainly be no passionate speeches given by any military leaders. Those who had led the units into this war slipped quietly away into the darkness alongside the great battle, receiving no real recognition beyond that of their own comrades. And in regard to those who had instigated this war — one was discovered dead in the rubble of what had once been his own elegant base and the other never even emerged. For once the world seemed not to care that there was hardly anyone upon whom to place the blame and no one upon whom to give the praise. For once this truly did seem to be for the best.

The soldiers who had fought under the command of Treize Kushrenada dissipated soon after the unanimous surrender of the organization following the announcement of their leader's death, scattering quickly to the four winds and the emptiness of the colonies, perhaps in fear of incarceration, or in the cases of some, execution for the attack on the Council in Luxembourg. They could create a hell for themselves now.

The members of the counteroffensive likewise withdrew, the more knowledgeable ones to aid in the upcoming abandonment of the base in Vólos. The return of a house of war into a useless shell, perhaps. Such a thing shouldn't matter. God knew there were enough soldiers who had already gone through such a transition.

Zechs Marquise — who would soon undergo such an experience himself — regained consciousness two days following the battle. The disorientation was gone completely when he awoke, and though he was instantly greeted by the tired sight of Lucrezia, he was initially disappointed by the ending of the vision of seraphs and saints that had, during his flirtation with the verge of death, played out behind his eyes.

The following day he was allowed to leave the section of the base that had become a medical ward. He was escorted to the surface on one side by Lucrezia, who had refused against medical advice to leave his side even for a moment, and on the other by Odin Lowe, who, now that his role in this war was over, seemed content in silence.

Zechs had not told him of the revelations imparted upon him by Treize. He felt he did not need to. Odin would know that Zechs was now aware of his true intentions in becoming the protagonist of the next great war. He had known since the beginning of their involvement that this was to occur, and any paltry words spoken on the matter would merely desecrate the abrupt insignificance this battle had bestowed to him.

The corridors were quiet and dark still as they passed through them, but this silence was not the furtive one of days past, the silence of fear of fear and preparation for bloodshed. Zechs regarded this scene with something like a numb wonder, giving not pause for thoughts and realizations that normally would have plagued his mind. He silently took Lucrezia's hand in his own and thought instead of those whose contact he had neglected for the sake of his war-torn ambitions, of Midii Une and her companion, the former gundam pilot, of those he had not seen since his departure from the colony. He thought of a glimmer of silver in the candlelight and a young girl's whispered prayers. He thought of all the secrets that had, in their youth and even now, surrounded them. He thought of a Japanese woman with calm almond eyes that looked into the very soul and lips that were eternally curved into a cryptic smile, of how she had changed so much and yet the world had felt nothing.

But these things did not yet matter. Thoughts and realizations would come later, and so would thought and memory. For now, please God, let there be only nothing.

"You'd best pray, Marquise," Odin said as they neared the stairs that would take them aboveground, "that you have not kept her waiting long."

He cast an inquisitive glance at the man but stopped before he could put the question into words. He had a feeling he knew what had happened.

The sun was out and high outside, a great orb of yellow like a vision of hope held in the embrace of the cloudless blue sky, like the vision of a welcome from the seraphs and saints that silently repeated themselves over and over in his mind. He closed his eyes as it lit upon his face and Lucrezia stepped close against him. He didn't believe he had ever truly realized how much loved her until this moment.

His eyes adjusted to the light and he saw, far away from them by the edge of the woods, sitting in a slumped crouch the boy, the sullen, silent Heero. Strangely, the sight of the pilot caused him to give a slight smile. And the boy was not the only one outside the base — standing by the car that would later that day take them to the airport where they would leave for Paris were Rhyn and Marguerite, their lips together in a deep kiss that did not seem likely to end soon and their hands clasped tightly at their sides. Rhyn opened a single eye and raised a hand with hers in tow in greeting, perhaps also in a farewell, but made no move to approach him. He had already said his goodbyes.

Zechs supposed that really all of them, the morose child of the forgotten pacifist leader included, had already said them.

These figures caught his eye only for a moment, however. Immediately he was drawn to her, to the spot where she stood dressed in white like one of the angels in the poem he had once so often read to her. Or perhaps she was more the narrative's leading lady than an angel: the young Malespina's bride, a woman disgraced and then redeemed, a woman who descended into Hell in blind devotion to an ideal and fought her way into Heaven no longer a fool but a youthful woman who would yield not even to the devil himself. Beside her stood Yuan-Chen, who had, no doubt, escorted her onto the base's secured property.

She stared at him for several moments, her breath coming out heavily, thickly, and her eyes reddening with tears.

"Milliardo," his sister said finally, taking a single step toward him. Her lips stuttered the beginning of an apology then failed her, and when she could not speak at all she rushed forward and threw her arms about him.

_Everything is a war_. Indeed everything, and thinking this he glanced around the base, at the silent boy who had again barricaded himself in his solitude, at the Chinese man he knew he would never see again after this was over. He glanced at the man at his side, the dark figure he had given up on understanding. He glanced at the pair a few yards away from him, and then he glanced at the woman beside him, the violet-eyed former lieutenant who had also once been a baroness. For the first time, strangely, he realized that the waist of her clothes was beginning to become tight with the swelling of her abdomen around the child that grew within her.

_Everything is a war. _Yes, so it all was, and then likewise each of these people was a war and must therefore fight a war, the wars within their own minds and those that would at different times in their lives occur. And if all these were wars and a war rests with everything, then at some point all of these wars will be fought and, for however brief a time, there would be peace. There must be peace. It was, after all, the only ending.

So would the seraphs and saints now welcome them all in, having fought all their current battles? Would Hell raise its great cheer as they all knelt at the seat of divine mercy? Would nothing of the sort ever seem likely, or would the fair meadow of Heaven open before them and would throngs of angels escort each to his own rest?

He silently returned his sister's embrace and decided that it didn't matter.

_**Finis**_

**Author's Notes: **There isn't very much to say about this epilogue. It is not necessarily a happy ending, but neither is it a tragic one. It has the potential for both. All involved are inherently the same as they were before the war, though they have endured what once might have been unthinkable. Relena and Zechs are reunited, but to what result is uncertain. She has her once again war-torn kingdom to attend to; he and Lucrezia, though they have been together for a long time, still have issues between them that must be resolved. Rhyn and Marguerite have nothing waiting for them. Heero is in a weakened state and is struggling to hold on to the only concept of himself he possesses. Odin is again without a purpose. The end of the war is but a moment in their lives, but nonetheless it is a moment that interrupts the uncertainty with which they are all, respectively, left. They are each left to their own endeavors with no sense of greater direction. None of them have a heightened sense of spirituality or bitterness: the end of this war does not involve a new closeness to God, to country, or even to one's own ideals. They have only each other now, and whatever decisions they make in light of this new conflict. The theme of this war was not idealism but rather the individuals who took part in it, for whatever reasons they had.

The first chapter of _The Remnants of War_, the sequel to this story, will be posted soon. It is not quite as long as Ballad, and it is written in what I feel is a better style (as there was at least a year between when I wrote Ballad and when I started Remnants), but I've had so many requests for it that I see no reason not to post it. It offers closure to the situation with Zechs, Lucrezia, and even Relena, but chiefly concerns a new ordeal that occurs involving Heero.


End file.
